US freight transporter Estes Express Lines says cyber attack caused significant service disruptions

Virginia-based freight transportation provider Estes Express Lines admitted that it suffered a major cyber attack that forced it to take several of its systems offline.

The freight transport provider said on X that it was a victim of a cyber security incident that caused a serious “IT infrastructure outage.” While the company did not share who conducted the cyber attack or how the threat actors infiltrated its systems, Estes confirmed that all its terminals and drivers are picking up and delivering freight.

“We’re working as quickly as possible to resolve this issue and to return to business as usual. We are immensely grateful for the dedication and responsiveness of our more-than-22,000 employees and the way they’ve banded together to keep serving our customers and each other,” the company said.

 

According to FreightWaves, calls made to Estes’ Richmond headquarters were answered with a recorded message that the call “could not be completed as dialed.” Also, calls made to two Estes depots returned the same message.

The cyber attack also affected Estes’ online tracking service for goods and vehicles in transit. Several clients of the company weren’t able to track their shipments and took to social media to voice their concerns.

The company responded to those queries with a generic reply: “We apologise for the inconvenience. With the outage in our online tracking system, we are unable to track and trace freight currently, but our Operations team is working diligently to deliver freight to your customer.”

Estes Express has, however, confirmed that while it couldn’t share much details about the security incident, it will provide updates as and when available.

Transportation and freight service providers have frequently been targeted by threat actors. Last year, billion-dollar logistics and freight forwarding giant Expeditors International, based near the Port of Seattle, took most operating systems offline after discovering a cyber attack on its network.

The attack disrupted the company’s ability to arrange freight shipments and reduced its capacity to manage customs and distribution activities for its shipments. The company, which brought in $10.1 billion in revenue the previous year, said it had “limited ability to conduct operations,” including arranging freight shipments and managing customs and distribution activities.