Government Technology Safety

Noël Fletcher | Staff Reporter
January 11, 2024 11:15 AM, EST

Social Engineering Cyberattacks on the Rise

Government Transportation Workers Targeted More Frequently



Cordell Schachter, chief information officer at USDOT, says the agency's click rate has fallen by 16%, largely due to increased awareness and phishing tests given to employees. (Noel Fletcher/Transport Topics)

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WASHINGTON — More government transportation offices are experiencing social engineering cyberattacks by would-be intruders trying to psychologically manipulate employees and contractors into giving away confidential information.

Several speakers at the Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting on Jan. 8 disclosed recent examples of these sophisticated cyberattacks during a panel discussion called “Cyber Resilient Transportation: An Executive Look at the Data and Tools Necessary to Prepare the National Transportation System.”

The “all-too-human fallibilities and vulnerabilities” of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey’s employees and contractors are being targeted for exploitation by cybercriminals, noted Josh DeFlorio, the port authority’s chief of resilience and sustainability.

“We’ve been subject to malware, ransomware attacks and distributed denial-of-service attacks, but increasingly, and perhaps most disturbingly, we’ve been the subject of significant social engineering attacks as well,” DeFlorio said. ... In social engineering attacks, cybercriminals use their social skills to try interacting with personnel in a targeted organization to obtain information or gain access into its computer systems.

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