Electronic Logging Devices (“ELD”) are now required for drivers of many commercial motor vehicles (“CMV”) in the United States. ELDs are the electronic equivalent of a paper log used to record a driver’s working and driving time.
The new mandate will result in hundreds of thousands of new internet connected devices and opens another opportunity for hackers to access, expose or destroy critical private or personal information. Hackers can severely disrupt or wholly-disable a motor carrier’s operations if not handled properly.
Wise drivers and motor carriers realizes that each ELD poses a security threat potential not only to that truck and that driver, but all the things that it directly or indirectly connects to. That includes the truck itself and, if not properly configured and secured, the entire outside electronic world. A modern day truck’s wired and wireless electronic systems connect to each other, the ELD, to the manufacturer and, quite often, to the motor carrier. The ELD itself connects to the truck, the motor carrier via cell or wi-fi and to, again at times, law enforcement via USB, Bluetooth, or e-mail. In addition, the ELD might connect to the driver’s own devices, which is, in turn, connected to the internet and its many hazards.
Read the article by Mike Glover and Bryan Feldhaus which appeared in April 2018 at Marsh & McLennan Agency website.
