Alert Cites Spoofed Emails, Fake URLs, Fraudulent Load Board Posts
Noel Fletcher
The FBI has issued a public alert about “surging” cargo theft cases involving cybercriminals impersonating a broad range of legitimate freight companies.
The April 30 announcement highlighted the tactics and range of firms being targeted in the U.S. transportation and logistics sectors — from insuring cargo to shipping, receiving and delivering freight.
Cybercriminals, the FBI warned, are deploying more sophisticated tactics to impersonate real businesses to hijack freight, reroute shipments and steal high-value cargo. The result has been a surge in the crime over the past two years.
Cargo thieves are gaining unauthorized access to computer systems of freight brokers and carriers — mainly with spoofed emails and fake URLs — to compromise carrier accounts.
The criminals are accessing victim-company accounts to reach servers that can release malware. They also are acquiring website domain names that are spoofed versions of legitimate company URLs.
“The cyber actors pose as victim companies and post fraudulent listings on load boards to deceive shippers, brokers and carriers into handing over goods, which are redirected from their intended destination and stolen for resale,” the FBI explained.
Cyber Schemes
The FBI provided a multistep process that cyber thieves use to steal freight.
Criminals impersonate and spoof brokers via email, sending links to a carrier broker agreement or to review and address poor service ratings. The links are frequently shortened, spoofed URLs. Once clicked, victim companies are redirected to a phishing website imitating the legitimate one.
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“The phishing website hosts a malicious executable file, which downloads other legitimate remote monitoring and management software, giving the cyberthreat actors total, undetected access to the brokers’ or carriers’ systems,” the FBI stated.
When the criminals access load boards, they impersonate legitimate brokers using compromised carrier accounts to post additional fake loads.
“Legitimate carriers bid on the fake loads and contact the threat actors, who provide the malicious carrier broker agreement and compromise the carrier’s computer systems,” the agency added.
Pretending to be the compromised victim-carrier company, the thieves accept shipments and double-broker a load to partially unwitting drivers — giving manipulated bills of lading and changing a load’s destination.
To ensure their access, criminals change a legitimate carrier’s contact information with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration and update insurance information “to permit loads the legitimate carrier previously did not accept,” the FBI noted. “The compromised carrier may not realize they are compromised until brokers contact them about missing loads booked under their authority but without their knowledge.”
Loads can be cross-docked for less than 24 hours at a warehouse before being picked up by another carrier or transloaded to colluding drivers, who redirect the cargo.
In cargo theft schemes, transloading “appears as unloading freight from one carrier directly to another, sometimes on the side of a road,” the FBI said.
Some drivers are caught up in cargo theft by not being fully aware of the scheme but “should recognize that certain aspects of their involvement in the carrier process is suspicious and atypical in the industry,” the FBI stated.
Sometimes thieves impersonating a carrier reconnect with the broker and demand a ransom in return for providing the missing cargo’s location or information about the stolen load.
How to Spot Cyber Cargo Theft
The FBI encourages companies working within the transportation and logistics sector to be aware of these tactics. Other ways to identify cyber cargo thieves include:
- Being contacted by brokers, carriers or dispatchers about unauthorized shipments being done in a company’s name without that company’s knowledge.
- Receiving emails spoofing legitimate company domains using free email providers — such as dispatch.FBITrucking@[provider].com instead of dispatch@FBITrucking.com.
- Requesting a legitimate company to download documents or forms from shortened or spoofed web links.
- Emails claiming to be negative service reviews with links to “review” or “resolve” complaints — with links leading to malicious downloads.
- New or unauthorized mailbox rules — forwarding to external addresses, autodeletion or hidden folders.
- Other tactics involve sending companies emails from domains or free service providers that mimic legitimate ones but have small differences. Examples are extra punctuation (fb-i.gov), different top-level domains (fbi.com, fbi.us), extra prefixes or suffixes (thefbi.gov, fbiemail.gov) and misspellings (fbii.gov, fdi.gov).
- Fake email addresses are spoofed or changed from real ones by adding the name of a job-related title in front of an authentic email address.
- Criminals avoiding the use of telephone landlines and cellphones and communicating with target companies through voice over internet protocol (VoIP) and online applications that are used for short periods and found to be in contact with overseas phone numbers.
Ben Wilkens
In a recent article I wrote for TheTrucker.com, I talked about the importance of including drivers in cybersecurity awareness training. In that article, I also pointed out that the vehicles our drivers operate are essentially rolling networks.
The cab of a modern Class 8 truck contains, arguably, more tech than most small offices did 10 years ago. However, many fleets cannot produce an accurate list of what connected devices exist inside their trucks and trailers.
The modern truck often has an electronic logging device (ELD), an associated telematics gateway, original equipment manufacturer (OEM) telematics connections and infotainment systems.
Many — if not all of these — receive over-the-air updates.
This list doesn’t include any of the aftermarket add-on devices yet, such as dashcams, Wi-Fi hotspots and all the devices (both personal and company-owned) that connect through them.
Trailers have their own connected devices and communication channels as well. Consider tracking devices, connected reefer units and their associated environmental sensors, and Bluetooth or wireless tire pressure monitoring systems.
All too often, fleets cannot produce a detailed inventory of these devices per vehicle configuration.
Why is this important? We cannot protect what we don’t know about.
In the 2026 NMFTA Cybersecurity Transportation Industry Cybersecurity Trends Report, telematics manipulation, GPS spoofing and insecure aftermarket devices were all identified as factors that contribute to cyber-enabled cargo crime.
How is the vehicle itself a potential target?
The diagnostic port doesn’t natively distinguish between a manufacturer’s scan tool and an aftermarket device with sub-par security controls.
These aftermarket devices vary significantly in their security maturity.
Some of them are excellent and have been rigorously tested for vulnerabilities before being released to the market. Others, not so much. Some devices are built to meet a price-point that makes them likely not to include the cybersecurity protections required to safely deploy them in our fleets. Many devices and components are also manufactured in countries of origin that are not considered safe from a cybersecurity perspective.
It’s important to note that the truck doesn’t need a Hollywood-style hack to occur in order to be a threat vector. Blinding the tracking system on a truck or trailer or passively accessing data being transmitted by an insecure aftermarket device could pose a security risk.
Ultimately, the largest risks come from potential manipulation of the signals on the vehicle bus network itself, though this generally requires a higher level of access and sophistication than most attackers possess.
It is helpful to consider the potential risks as three possible attack paths.
The Data Path
Location, load details, customer information and routing data all flow to and from the truck constantly. Many cargo thefts occur through simple manipulation of the shipping details for a load, which could be possible if one of these communications channels were compromised.
The Control Path
This is anything that could change what the truck or trailer is told to do by onboard systems. A manipulated signal to a brake controller, a spoofed fault code or a simple signal overload of the entire system can derate a vehicle.
The Trust Path
The device on the diagnostics port, the tablet connected to the vehicle, the dashcam monitoring the vehicle’s movements — all of these devices’ connections are accepted by the vehicle. Weak security in any of these devices can create an attack path.
Our trucks are a clear example of why a converged approach to security that includes cybersecurity, operational security and cybersecurity is necessary. The paths above require all three of these security disciplines to be involved in the solution.
What can fleets do about the risk?
The answer here is not a 50-item checklist. A small number of actions can dramatically increase the security of any fleet.
Inventory what is connected.
Have maintenance personnel and security or IT personnel walk a truck together and document the connection points. Repeat this for each different configuration in the fleet. It may be surprising how many devices and systems are identified in this exercise.
Vet all aftermarket devices and vendors from a security perspective.
Anything that plugs into a diagnostic port, or pairs with the vehicle is a part of your attack surface. Ask the vendor about their security practices, their update process and how they handle vulnerabilities. If they don’t have answers, then your answer should be clear.
Bring your drivers into the conversation.
The driver will notice when something is acting strangely long before security or even maintenance. Give them a clear and simple reporting path and treat reports seriously; they may be an early warning sign.
Make sure your incident response plan (IRP) recognizes the truck as a potential attack surface.
An incident does not always begin at an enterprise firewall or with a phishing email. It could start with tampering via a diagnostic port, errors in a telematics system, or odd vehicle fault codes reported by a driver. The IRP needs to account for that.
Security starts with visibility
Historically, our equipment and our information technology were two separate worlds. Different teams were responsible for them; they had completely different vendor management requirements; and the teams had totally different vocabularies. That separation is no longer viable. The trucks and trailers must be part of the security program now.
Modern trucks are connected platforms that produce data, receive instructions and interact with other trusted devices constantly. This means that they are part of the cybersecurity risk taxonomy whether the organization acknowledges it or not.
NMFTA has a growing library of free resources to help fleets continue their security journey, including the Road to Resilience series of guidebooks, the Vendor Risk Assessment Framework and the new Freight Fraud Prevention Hub, as well as numerous white papers and research articles focused specifically on the rolling assets that make up the backbone of our operation.
Mark Schremmer
When it comes to trucking regulations, many create additional hardships for truck drivers.
However, there’s a seldom-discussed regulation on the books specifically designed to protect the driver. It’s called the Coercion Rule.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration recently issued a list of Frequently Asked Questions “to help truck drivers understand how they might be coerced to violate safety regulations and what they can do if they believe they have been coerced.”
An abbreviated list of FMCSA’s FAQ is included below:
What is the purpose of the Coercion Rule?
The Coercion Rule, 49 CFR 390.6, is designed to protect commercial motor vehicle drivers from being pressured to violate the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations by motor carriers, shippers, receivers, and transportation intermediaries (brokers) and their agents, officers, or representatives.
What types of actions count as coercive or adverse employment actions?
Under the FMCSRs, employers are prohibited from withholding business, employment or work opportunities from a driver, taking or permitting any adverse employment action against a driver, or threatening to do any of these things. These actions could include, but are not limited to termination, withholding business, economic penalties and scheduling retaliation.
If I feel I have been coerced, what can I do?
FMCSA recommends that drivers keep records, file a complaint with FMCSA within 90 calendar days, and to include all the necessary information in the complaint.
Can my employer retaliate against me for filing a complaint?
No, employers are prohibited from retaliating against employees under federal law for filing a coercion complaint (49 U.S.C. 31105). Under 49 CFR 386.12(c)(3), FMCSA makes every practicable effort to protect drivers who allege retaliation by their employers.
If a driver needs more information about filing a written complaint, he or she can call 1-888-DOT-SAFT (1-888-368-7238).
Roadway safety is at the core of FMCSA’s mission. Our job is to focus on ways to reduce crashes and fatalities involving large trucks and buses on our nation’s roadways. That’s a big job – one we know we can’t do alone. That’s why we partner with state organizations, local jurisdictions, academic institutions, training providers, and other entities to promote commercial motor vehicle (CMV) safety-related activities.
FMCSA has announced four Notices of Funding Opportunity (NOFOs) for FY2026 grant opportunities. Now’s the time to gain information on eligibility requirements and the application process. There’s about a 30-day window to complete the application.
Click here for FY2026 Grant Funding Opportunities
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.”
Deborah Lockridge
‘The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration announced what it called a complete overhaul of the vetting process for electronic logging devices that track truck driver hours of service compliance, but stopped short of requiring third-party certification.
It’s a step in the right direction to address what many in the industry say are growing problems with unscrupulous motor carriers and unscrupulous ELD providers editing driver logs to allow them to violate hours of service limits.
ELDs, mandatory for most interstate truck drivers, electronically record hours-of-service to help prevent fatigue-related crashes and ensure compliance with federal safety regulations.
However, the way ELDs get onto the FMCSA’s list of approved devices has been criticized since the mandatory electronic logging device rules went into effect in 2017. ELD providers “self-certify” that their devices meet the technical specifications in the rule (49 CFR Part 395, App. A).
FMCSA Targets Non-Compliant ELDs
A DOT news release said the overhaul will help ensure non-compliant devices are blocked before they ever reach FMCSA’s Registered ELD list.
The “move toward a more structured, hands-on vetting approach signals a notable evolution in federal oversight of the ELD marketplace,” said Brandon Wiseman of TruckSafe Consulting in a blog post.
As Wiseman notes, FMCSA has not historically tested the devices, validated the software, inspected the hardware, or otherwise verified the vendors’ claims before listing them.
Under the previous system, it was easier to register non-compliant devices or re-register devices that had been revoked by the agency. FMCSA said its updated process closes this loophole. New ELD listings will no longer flow straight from self-certification to public listing.
The New ELD Vetting Process
Key features of the updated ELD vetting process include:
- Initial review: Verification of contact information, technical specifications, and device images.
- Fraud detection: Cross-checking new applications against active, inactive, revoked, and in-process lists.
- Application categorization:
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- Category 1 – Approved: Application has met all necessary requirements for approval.
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- Category 2 – InformationRequested: Application is pending further information from the applicant.
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- Category 3 – Further Review: Application requires additional internal assessment and may require additional documentation from the applicant.
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- Category 4 – Denied: Application does not meet the required standards for approval.
“While the agency has yet to share the specific details of how this revised system will actually function, it seems the shift will at least serve as a basic gatekeeping function for nefarious actors,” Wiseman wrote.
“While the agency still is not conducting independent laboratory tests or validating devices in real-world settings, it is at least injecting a level of scrutiny that should prevent some of the most problematic devices from ever making it to the marketplace.”
Trucking Industry Outcry About Bad Actors
There has been a growing movement in the trucking industry pushing the FMCSA to take action to deal with unscrupulous ELD providers and motor carriers blatantly violating hours of service rules through ELD data manipulation.
Industry sources say the problem isn’t just a fleet or driver trying to manipulate logs, but an ELD provider editing the logs and not providing records of those edits.
Zach Meiborg, a former HDT Emerging Leader and owner of Meiborg Companies, has been on a mission to raise awareness of how bad-actor trucking operations are taking advantage of ELD loopholes, including adding fake co-drivers to an ELD to mask a truck driver’s hours of service violations.
Unscrupulous motor carriers, many of which Zeiborg maintains operate from oversees, are “webbing in overnight, and they’re erasing their driver’s hours of service showing that another driver completed that leg of the trip when that didn’t happen at all.”
When the FMCSA revokes an ELD from its list, Meiborg said, “You know what those non-compliant e-log providers do? They copy and paste their code and start a new e-log company the following week.”
Kevin Grove, ATA’s director of safety and technology policy, told ATA newspaper Transport Topics that earlier this year, CVSA discovered some instances of fraud that involved not only drivers or trucking fleets falsifying logs, but of ELD providers doing the editing on their end.
And Jeremy Disbrow, a roadside inspection specialist at the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance, told Transport Topics, “Tampered ELDs usually look perfect, and it is often difficult and time-consuming to identify instances of ELD tampering during a roadside inspection.
“In many cases, the ELD providers are not only manipulating the information within the ELD, but they are also manipulating the information on the shipping papers and other supporting documents to match the fraudulent entries within the ELD.”
The end result, he said, is that the problem ELDs give carriers the ability to do edits, “allowing these fleets to erase your hours every night and give the drivers fresh brand new hours.”
Danielle Chaffin, with TMS provider Revenova, wrote in a lengthy online article on problems with the ELD self-certification process, “I’ve reviewed dozens of so-called ‘certified’ ELD providers. Most are foreign-owned or operated outside the U.S., and virtually none undergo meaningful cybersecurity oversight.
“With backend access, tech teams can ‘reset’ or alter logs on demand,” she wrote. “That gives dispatchers the power to override reality, pushing drivers past legal limits while maintaining a perfectly clean digital paper trail.”
Third-Party Certification of ELDs
Some have been calling for the U.S. to adopt a system where approved third parties verify ELD compliance, such as Canada uses.
The American Trucking Associations, for instance, recently updated its safety policy to support third-party certification of ELDs and oversight such as auditing and monitoring of registered devices to prevent fraud by drivers, carriers or ELD providers.
Wiseman cautioned that the FMCSA’s new system is not the same as Canada’s rules.
“Fleets should recognize that the ELD marketplace in the U.S. is not yet entering a Canadian-style certification environment,” he wrote.
“Manufacturers continue to self-certify that their devices comply with the rule. FMCSA’s involvement remains procedural rather than technical. For that reason, carriers must continue to approach ELD selection with informed caution.”
More ELD Changes on the Way?
It’s unclear whether this announcement is related to proposed changes in ELD rules that the agency started working on in 2022 with an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking, or “prerule,” to gather information on potential ELD changes. The self-certification process was one of the areas being looked at in that process.
In the DOT’s regulatory agenda this summer, the Trump administration’s agenda indicated plans to publish an actual proposal in May 2026.
NTSB Ghost Driver Investigation
Last year, the National Transportation Safety Board recommended FMCSA strengthen ELD requirements when its investigation of a 2022 truck-bus crash found the truck driver was fatigued.
The motor carrier, Triton Logistics, created fictitious driver accounts for its electronic logging device systems that allowed drivers to exceed federal hours-of-service regulations and drive while fatigued.
When NTSB examined the ELD data from the day of the crash, it showed that the truck driver was operating in a driver/codriver arrangement. But they found no evidence of such a co-driver.
The driver told investigators that his company had told him that if he exceeded his allowable driving hours, he was to stop, call the carrier’s HOS department, and Triton personnel would log him out of the ELD and log in a new driver. He could then continue driving. A post-crash compliance review by FMCSA found this was not an isolated instance.
In its recommendation, the NTSB said FMCSA should strengthen electronic logging device requirements to prevent opportunities for the creation of fake driver accounts.
Regulations should require providers of electronic logging devices to create and produce an audit log, to include date, time and editor for driver logins, driver’s license numbers, and active driver list changes, the board said.
“This administration is cracking down on every link in the illegal trucking chain,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy in a news release.
