Tyson Fisher
New academic research reveals how vulnerable ELDs are to cyberattacks made by hacking into a truck’s system in seconds while driving alongside it.
Jeremy Daily, associate professor of systems engineering at Colorado State University, is no stranger to truck cybersecurity. He co-founded the CyberTruck Challenge in 2017 and has published numerous research papers related to the topic. However, his latest research exposes an alarming truth: Some electronic logging devices are easy to hack.
Along with research assistants Rik Chatterjee and Jake Jepson, Daily wanted to know how the ELD mandate affects cybersecurity for trucks. The researchers found they not only could access a truck’s accelerator pedal by simply driving by it but also could infect a fleet of trucks with malicious malware by hacking into just one ELD.
For this experiment, Jepson was able to take apart an ELD and do some reverse engineering. He found the default Wi-Fi password right away and from there spent several months developing a malicious version of the ELD’s firmware. Jepson told Land Line Now that this was his first time reverse-engineering a device and admitted a more experienced hacker likely could exploit vulnerabilities much faster.
Watch Land Line Now’s interview with Colorado State University researchers:
The researchers’ next task was to infect a truck – which proved remarkably simple.
Equipped only with a laptop and Wi-Fi range extender, they drove alongside a moving 2014 Kenworth T270. In just 30 seconds, they were able to access and infect the truck’s ELD with malicious firmware that allowed them to slow the truck down. Chatterjee, who was driving the Kenworth, said it would not speed up no matter how hard he pressed down on the pedal.
In this scenario, the researchers decided to slow down the truck for safety reasons. However, they just as easily could have forced the truck to speed up. And with access to the truck’s operating system, a hacker could access other functions, as well.
As if hacking one ELD were not bad enough, Daily and his team were able to infect several trucks by initially infecting just one.
The malicious firmware included what the researchers called a truck-to-truck worm. An ELD infected with this firmware can scan for nearby ELDs. Once a vulnerable one is identified, the truck-to-truck worm can spread the virus. The newly infected ELD then can repeat the scanning process, increasing the range of viral spread. This process can allow a hacker to infect an entire fleet of trucks that are close together, making truck stops, rest areas and yards prime targets.
ELD technology and regulations
Although only one brand of ELD was used, the researchers pointed out that manufacturers are using similar technology.
There are hundreds of certified ELDs available, but the research paper reported that there are relatively few distinct models. Essentially, companies are rebranding ELDs, rendering devices “clones of each other with minimal variations,” according to the study. Consequently, vulnerabilities present in one brand of ELD may be present in many others as well.
Another point of concern is the lack of regulation regarding ELD cybersecurity. Devices must meet technical specifications before registering with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, but manufacturers need only to self-certify.
The National Motor Freight Traffic Association has issued a list of recommended security requirements for ELDs. However, those recommendations appear to be largely ignored.
“I can say very confidently that if that guidance had been followed from the industry, then we wouldn’t have been able to demonstrate these exploits that Rik and Jake developed,” Daily told Land Line Now.
The researchers reached out to the ELD manufacturer before publishing the research. Daily said the manufacturer worked with him and his team to develop a firmware patch addressing the vulnerabilities.
What can truckers do to secure their truck?
There are measures truckers and fleet owners can take to mitigate any cybersecurity vulnerabilities.
First and foremost, truckers need to keep their ELDs updated. Like smartphones, ELDs may require periodic security updates that could include patches for newly discovered vulnerabilities. And if truckers have access to the device’s Wi-Fi password, they should change it to a stronger one.
Daily also believes in the power of the free market. If those in the industry – especially large fleets that buy in bulk – purchase only highly secured ELDs, it will force makers of less-secure ELDs to sink or swim.
The good news is that the industry has responded well to cybersecurity concerns in recent years. The truck used in this experiment was a 2014 Kenworth, a 10-year-old truck. In the past decade, truck manufacturers have improved security measures within their systems.
Click on links below to see videos on ELD vulnerabilities.
https://youtu.be/SEON7PMZwDM
https://youtu.be/IhsHIYh_haI
https://youtu.be/VV-EsrAsVRg
Allysa A. Adams
The moment an accident occurs is not the time to put your company’s accident response plan into place.
Having an accident response plan in place, including training your dispatchers on the policy, will allow you to act as soon as an accident occurs. The faster you act, the better prepared you can be to prevent a lawsuit or claim, and the better prepared you will be to defend yourself in the event of a lawsuit.
Also, by acting fast and taking a proactive approach, you can potentially save money and litigation fees. Even if a suit is filed, taking a proactive approach allows you to collect evidence from the scene, perform surveillance, gather statements, or examine social media evidence to use in your favor at trial. Keep in mind these top 5 tips when preparing to respond to an accident:
Act fast and be prepared. When an accident occurs, the faster you act, the better you can respond. To effectively do this, you must start well before an accident occurs. The best place to start is by training your dispatchers on how to respond when an accident call comes in and let them know what they should be asking the driver, what information to obtain, and what additional individuals – including attorneys or field adjusters – to contact to help with the response.
Do not take statements from your driver. Do not have your driver make any written or recorded statements regarding the accident. This will have to be produced to opposing counsel if there is any future litigation. These statements will be used against your driver if any inconsistencies pop up later. Also, advise your driver not to give any statements to anyone or talk to anyone else about the accident. One thing you can do to completely protect your driver’s version of events is to immediately have an attorney speak to the driver. Everything said to the attorney would be confidential and protected by attorney-client privilege and could not be used later against the driver.
Bring in outside help. You will want to hire an independent adjuster to help investigate the accident. I recommend in all accidents, both big and small, you hire an independent adjuster to call the other driver and witnesses to obtain their statement. If liability is not in your favor, you can take proactive steps to avoid a future lawsuit, like paying for the damages to their vehicle or resolving any claims for bodily injury before they engage an attorney. Payment to a claimant up front can save future attorney’s fees and any future judgment. It is also good to have both sides of the story so you can get a full view of the accident.
Depending on the situation, you can also hire an independent adjuster for further investigation. If you believe that there may be security cameras in the area, from other businesses or entities, you can have the adjuster go out to the scene to try to obtain any videos that have footage of the accident. I always ask drivers if they know if there was a camera in the area and if they had a dash camera. These videos can turn a disputed liability case into one that you can argue completely in your favor. Also depending on the accident, especially in serious accidents, you may want to hire an independent adjuster to go out to the scene and take photographs. Also depending on the situation, especially in serious cases, you may want to hire an accident reconstructionist to inspect the vehicle, do a download of the black box of the vehicle, and to review the accident site to determine how the accident happened.
Social media. When you find out about a more severe accident, you or your attorney’s office should look for information concerning the accident. You can find out a lot of information about an accident just by checking on Facebook and other social media. Family members of the person hurt in the accident may comment on news articles or post about their loved one’s injuries.
Another important thing to do in these cases is to have your attorney or independent adjuster run a public record search and a social media search for the claimant. Make sure to keep checking on social media to see if they mention their injuries. Usually, once the claimant retains an attorney, they will be told to take their social media down, so it is important to find it immediately if you think there could be future litigation. Social media is very important and can sometimes be the piece of evidence that you need to prove the claimant is not injured. However, you must act fast on this. If you wait until a lawsuit is filed, it may be too late.
Preservation of evidence. You should make sure to preserve any evidence from the accident. This would include pulling the driver’s logs for the week before the accident. If a preservation letter is received from the claimant’s attorney, make sure that you save anything that is included in the letter so that you are prepared in case of potential litigation. If not saved, you can be accused of spoliation and may have sanctions issued by the court. If a preservation letter is received, have counsel send your preservation letter to have the claimant preserve any evidence they have regarding the accident.
This is not an exhaustive list and assumes accident response measures are planned before the accident. Please contact me for questions your trucking company has on accident response or for free accident response packets, forms, and checklists.
Deborah Lockridge
In the years since mandatory electronic logging devices for most U.S. truck drivers went fully into effect in late 2019, log falsification violations rank as one of the most common driver-related violations discovered by enforcement officials.
Log falsification is a misrepresentation of a commercial driver’s duty status or driving time on their daily record of duty status. They can be uncovered during roadside inspections or during Department of Transportation audits of motor carriers. And whether they are deliberate or unintentional, they can be a major problem for fleets.
But there are things you can do to reduce the number of violations.
Nearly 5% of all driver-related roadside inspections involved some kind of a log falsification in the years from 2019 to 2023, according to Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration statistics — and they rank as the fourth most common driver-related violation.
It’s even worse in compliance reviews, AKA DOT audits, where log falsification is actually the second most common violation that’s discovered. The FMCSA has reportedly discovered around 21,000 log falsification violations in their DOT audits, which amounts to around 6% of the audits that they conduct, says Brandon Wiseman, president of Trucksafe Consulting.
“Those numbers — 5, 6% — don’t seem like all that all that big of a deal, but they are,” Wiseman says.
Why can log falsification violations be so bad for motor carriers, why are there so many false log violations, and what can fleets do to fix it?
Log Falsifications Hurt Your CSA Score
Log falsifications discovered during roadside inspections affect a motor carrier’s CSA (Compliance, Safety, Accountability) score in the hours of service BASIC as shown in the FMCSA’s Safety Measurement System.
“They are heavily weighted, and they can cause a motor carrier’s CSA score in the hours of service basic to tick up pretty quickly,” Wiseman says. “And in fact, a high hours of service BASIC score is a very common trigger for a DOT audit.
“The more log falsifications you as a fleet are incurring, the more likely it is you’re going to have the DOT knocking at your door,” he says.
Log Falsifications Hurt Your Motor Carrier Safety Rating
What those DOT inspectors discover during that audit will mean the difference between a Satisfactory, Conditional, or Unsatisfactory Safety Fitness Determination (more commonly known simply as a safety rating.)
Wiseman explains that during a DOT audit, investigators are looking for critical-level violations in your hours of service records.
“What they mean by a critical level of violations is a pattern of noncompliance over a certain period of time, or over a certain number of logs that they are sampling,” Wiseman explains. “A 10% or higher violation rate in that context, that would amount to a critical level violation.”
Investigators are looking for violations of the rules themselves — the 11-hour driving rule, the 14-hour daily rule, the 70-hour rule, etc. — but they’re also looking for log falsifications.
“If they find a log falsification violation rate of 10% or more in the DOT audit — which is not that hard to find — then you’re going to get a critical level violation in the hours of service factor for that audit. And if you get a critical level violation in the hours of service factor, you’re not getting out of that audit with anything better than a Conditional safety rating.”
What he has seen in the years of working with clients on their regulatory compliance is that the most common way fleets get a downgraded safety rating is log falsifications.
“Aside from getting a downgraded safety rating, the other thing you can usually expect to receive is a civil penalty,” Wiseman adds. Just how much that fine may be will vary based on factors such as the size of your company and how many violations were discovered, but Wiseman said he’s seen log falsification fines from $5,000 up to $50,000.
False Logs + Crash Litigation = Bad News
And let’s not forget the potential for litigation following a crash.
In its 2020 research report on how “nuclear verdicts” affect the trucking industry, the American Transportation Research Institute found that there were five particular factors brought against a defendant that yielded 100% verdicts in favor of the plaintiff.
The top one was hours-of-service or logbook violations.
“If your fleet has a real problem with drivers falsifying their logs, whether it’s deliberately or inadvertently, and one of your drivers is involved in a catastrophic accident, you can be sure that the log falsification issue is going to come to light in that litigation,” Wiseman says. “And it may very well haunt you in that litigation, particularly if one of the reasons for the accident has to do with driver fatigue.”
How do Log Falsifications Happen?
One of the biggest culprits behind log falsification, says Wiseman, is the use and abuse of “personal conveyance” status.
“In fact, it is being widely misused by a lot of drivers to conceal hours of service violations,” he says.
“Personal conveyance has always been and continues to be a significant source of misunderstanding among drivers, among carriers, among law enforcement, among the FMCSA itself. Nobody can really get their arms around it.”
Personal conveyance, he says, is for a limited circumstance where a commercial driver could legally log their driving time as off duty. When ELDs were implemented, because the device will automatically log as on-duty driving if the vehicles is moving, officials added the “personal conveyance” status as an option so the ELD doesn’t count against their hours limits.
A legitimate use of personal conveyance might be an owner-operator who’s not under dispatch and needs to use his truck to help move his brother from Indiana to Florida. Or he has a boat that he needs to take down to the lake.
“Truly personal reasons,” Wiseman notes.
Part of the problem, he says, is that personal conveyance is not written in the official rules but is published as a guidance.
Mis-Using Personal Conveyance Status
Drivers can mis-use the personal exemption option in their ELDs, whether it’s from a lack of understanding of the rules or a deliberate falsification.
Wiseman offers the example of a driver who’s under dispatch for a motor carrier and has only 50 more miles to go when he or she hits the 11-hour daily driving limit. Regulations require the driver to shut down for the required rest period right there.
“But if you really want to get the job done, and you want to avoid the appearance of an hours of service violation, the way you get around that is by flipping yourself into personal conveyance status,” Wiseman says.
To someone who’s not digging into it very deeply, he says, it will look like the driver was in compliance with the hours of service rules that day.
However, he says, “it doesn’t take much for law enforcement and for motor carriers to do a little bit of digging on that personal conveyance segment of your time and figure out if you were legitimately off-duty for personal reasons or not. And if they find out that you weren’t, then it’s a log falsification.”
Ironically, Wiseman says, the driver actually would have been better off to have just violated the 11-hour rule than to be found falsifying driver logs.
Personal Conveyance Misconceptions
A common misconception is that the personal conveyance status can be used by drivers to get to a safe parking place for their required rest if the first place they stop is full. In fact, Wiseman points out, that is only for right after loading or unloading. The guidance says an accepted use of personal conveyance is “time spent traveling to a nearby, reasonable, safe location to obtain required rest after loading or unloading.”
“That’s a very common misunderstanding is that that there’s some so-called safe haven allowance in the personal conveyance guidance,” Wiseman says. “It’s not true. If you run out of hours and you’re in the middle of the highway, there’s no way for you to get to a safe location to rest except to go in violation. That’s your only option.
“DOT would tell you, you should have planned better for that situation. And now you’re going to suffer the consequences of your hours violation.”
Other Reasons for Driver Log Falsifications
Some of the other common reasons behind log falsification violations may be inadvertent.
For instance, a driver might put themselves into off duty status in a situation where the regulations require them to be in on-duty/not driving status.
The most common example, he says, is drivers logging off-duty when fueling their trucks. That time is supposed to be logged as on duty/not driving.
“A lot of times drivers just don’t realize that they’re supposed to be an on-duty status during while they’re fueling their vehicles, and so they flip themselves into off duty status. That’s considered a log falsification.”
Another common area where logs are falsified — deliberately or inadvertently — is unassigned driving time when using an ELD.
ELDs automatically start logging driving time whenever a vehicle starts moving. If nobody is logged in, that goes into the carrier’s back-office access to the ELD software and put on an unassigned driving report.
When the DOT comes to audit you, Wiseman says, “one of the first things they’re going to ask for when they’re looking at your hours of service is your unassigned driving report. And it’s a very common way that carriers run into trouble in those audits.
“They turn over this unassigned driving report, and if it’s got thousands of hours of unassigned driving time, DOT oftentimes considers those to be log falsifications. Because a way for drivers to conceal hours of service violations is just by not logging into the device.”
FMCSA expects motor carriers to be reconciling the time on those unassigned driving reports and assigning them to the driver to whom they belong.
There are certain instances where there’s no driver to whom they belong, like when a technician is taking the truck out to diagnose or evaluate a problem. In those cases, Wiseman says, it’s important to annotate what those unassigned driving time entries are.
What Can Motor Carriers Do to Prevent Log Falsification Violations?
“There’s no magic formula to this,” Wiseman says. “It takes effort on your part to get these things under control.
“First things first, you can’t fix what you’re not measuring.”
Wiseman recommends fleets watch key safety and compliance metrics. When it comes to log falsifications, he says, safety managers need to watch the carrier’s hours-of-service CSA score in the SMS.
“If you see that you’re getting a bunch of log falsifications, now’s the time to deal with that before it balloons into a big problem and you have DOT knocking at your door,” he says.
In addition, monitor key reports that come from your ELD system, such as personal conveyance and unassigned driving time.
Carriers need to regularly audit their driver logs to look for common problems, such as logging fueling time as off-duty.
“Once you know where you are having problems, you actually have to take action to get control of them,” Wiseman says.
If a driver is incurring false log violations or a lot of personal conveyance time, the first step is to have a conversation with that driver.
“If it turns out that it’s a nefarious reason, then you need to take disciplinary action against them,” he says. There needs to be a progressive discipline program in place in fleet policies and it needs to be followed.
But if it turns out that false log violation, an overabundance of unassigned driving or personal conveyance time stems from a lack of understanding of the rules, drivers need education.
“You need to be educating your drivers, making sure they understand when they can use personal conveyance and when they can’t. Or if it’s unassigned driving time that you’re having a problem with, making sure that they are being held accountable to logging into their device. “Holding drivers accountable, giving them the education they need. That’s really what goes into getting control of these issues.”
What’s Your Trucking Fleet’s Personal Conveyance Policy?
One way motor carriers can address personal conveyance problems is by putting in place a more restrictive company policy than what the DOT guidance outlines.
For instance, the guidance says, a motor carrier could:
- Ban the use of a commercial motor vehicle for personal conveyance purposes.
- Set a distance limitation on personal conveyance.
- Prohibit personal conveyance while under a load.
Click on link below to see video.
https://youtu.be/t61S5Qs5lKQ
Kathy Close
ACSA BASIC (Behavior Analysis and Safety Improvement Category) score is a percentile ranking used to compare a motor carrier against its peers to assist in identify high-risk carriers.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) generates CSA BASIC scores for the following seven categories:
- Unsafe Driving: Dangerous or careless operation of commercial motor vehicles (CMVs).
- Hours of Service Compliance: Driving CMVs when ill, fatigued, or in violation of the hours-of-service rules.
- Driver Fitness: Operation of CMVs by drivers who are unfit to operate a CMV due to lack of training, experience, or medical qualification.
- Controlled Substances and Alcohol: Operation of a CMV while impaired due to alcohol, illegal drugs, and misuse of prescription medications or over-the-counter medications.
- Vehicle Maintenance: CMV failure due to improper or inadequate maintenance or inadequate cargo securement.
- Hazardous Materials (HM) Compliance: Unsafe marking, handling, or transportation of hazardous materials in an amount requiring a placard.
- Crash-Related: Histories or patterns of CMV crashes, including frequency and severity.
How is a CSA BASIC score derived?
The FMCSA uses a motor carrier’s safety data that is transmitted by state and federal enforcement to the Motor Carrier Management Information System (MCMIS). The past two years’ worth of roadside inspection and crash reports contain critical data elements used in CSA’s elaborate algorithms.
The algorithms provide carriers with a “measure” for each BASIC, taking into consideration:
- The severity of a roadside inspection violation or crash,
- How recent the event took place, and
- The carrier’s level of exposure (i.e., vehicle miles traveled, the average number of power units, number of inspections)
This BASIC measure is then compared against similar motor carriers for the percentile ranking. The rank is on a scale of 1-100, with 100 being the worst-performing. This percentile ranking is the carrier’s BASIC score.
How is the percentile ranking used?
Those motor carriers that exceed a predetermined threshold for an individual BASIC score are subject to an intervention by the FMCSA.
Interventions include:
- Warning letters advising of apparent safety problems and the potential consequences.
- Targeted roadside inspections to verify that the warning letters are being taken seriously.
- Offsite investigations that involve the collection and reviewing of documents at an FMCSA location.
- Focused onsite investigations at the motor carrier’s place of business, focusing on a specific safety problem.
- Comprehensive onsite investigations that occur at the motor carrier’s place of business.
- Cooperative safety plans developed and followed voluntarily by a motor carrier to address safety problems.
- Notices of violation to put a carrier on notice of specific regulatory violations that need to be corrected “or else.”
- Settlement agreements to contractually bind a motor carrier to take actions that improve safety.
- Notices of claims to levy a fine and compel compliance in the case of “severe” or repeat violations.
The intervention taken by the FMCSA is not sequential. If a carrier has multiple BASICs exceeding the thresholds and/or scores close to 100 percent, the agency will probably go straight to an investigation. A carrier can only be placed out of service based on the results of a comprehensive investigation since it contains elements of a compliance review.
How Can I Lower My CSA BASIC Scores?
The data used in the CSA formulas are only used for 24 months. As a result, you can only lower your CSA scores over time, by accumulating recent, violation-free inspections, and by avoiding crashes.
To improve your performance data, you should:
- Examine the violations that are scored in each BASIC,
- Look for trends (e.g., same driver or location), and
- Find a root cause for the safety event.
You should use this information to come up with a safety plan to avoid future violations and crashes. If the safety performance does not improve, you’ll have to re-evaluate its findings (find the real root cause) and apply another remedy until the issue is resolved.
To view your CSA scores and data, log into the CSA Safety Measurement System website using your DOT number and the carrier-assigned PIN that is used to update your DOT registration (MCS-150).
