By Ling Cheng (Senior Product Marketing Manager)
The global transportation industry is in the midst of a major shift, with government policies accelerating the transition to electric vehicles (EVs). In regions and countries like the EU and the US, emissions standards are becoming increasingly stringent. Meanwhile, Taiwan has set a goal for all urban buses and government fleets to be fully electrified by 2030. These policy moves are fueling the rapid adoption of EV fleets worldwide.
According to a Gartner® report titled “Market Guide for Commercial Vehicle Fleet Management,” “By 2030, there will be 1.8 million battery electric trucks and 8.5 million battery electric vans in global operation, up from 490,000 and 2.4 million respectively in 2025.”*
To keep up, you may have already invested in big data and AI to optimize your fleet’s operational efficiency. But one critical question remains: Have you accounted for the cybersecurity risks that come with increased connectivity and digitalization, given that a single breach in cybersecurity could unravel all your efforts in an instant?
Cybersecurity isn’t just risk management — it’s a tool for efficiency
Cybersecurity is not just a foundation for risk management — it’s a critical enabler of asset utilization. In the following subsections, we explore four key risks to illustrate just how deeply cybersecurity impacts your EV fleet’s performance and resilience.
Operational disruption risk: how fake commands could undermine efficiency
Picture this: Your fleet’s carefully planned schedule is derailed by attackers issuing fake commands, rerouting vehicles to incorrect destinations due to fraudulent orders. The consequence? Increased fuel consumption, delayed deliveries, customer complaints, and higher vehicle downtime — all of which eat into operational efficiency and asset utilization.
This isn’t hypothetical. In 2022, attackers exploited an API vulnerability in a popular Russian taxi app, sending dozens of vehicles to the same location with fake orders and causing a severe traffic jam in Moscow. And In 2024, a software vulnerability in an automaker’s system exposed the real-time location data of 800,000 EVs, potentially enabling malicious actors to steal cargo or decode delivery routes for competitors.
Cybersecurity lapses don’t just disrupt operations — they compromise the reliability of your entire fleet ecosystem.
Compliance risk: how tampered data could lead to misjudgments and fines
Regulations mandate that fleets install electronic logging devices (ELDs) to monitor driving data, but these can become targets for attackers. By exploiting vulnerabilities in ELDs or dashcams, malicious actors can implant malware that alters mileage, emissions information, or other critical metrics. This manipulated data can feed into compliance reports submitted by fleet systems or managers, running the risk of regulatory fines, and can mislead maintenance decisions, inflate costs, and disrupt workforce optimization.
Fleet management systems typically flag issues like inspection failures or driver overtime, supporting compliance and operational efficiency. But when data is compromised, these safeguards break down. According to our automotive threat intelligence, services offering ECU data tampering are available on the dark web — cheap, fast, and easily accessible to potential miscreants. These enable users to modify ECUs so that they deliver incorrect data to ELDs. Even a single ill-advised insider misusing such a service, whether to inflate hours or manipulate logs, could put your fleet’s compliance and operational integrity at risk.
Privacy breach risk: how supply chain integration could become a data leak vector
Modern fleet management systems often integrate third-party services to streamline operations. Vehicle maintenance, incident reporting, and consumables procurement can all be automatically delivered to drivers or maintenance teams, eliminating the need to manually gather information from disparate systems. While this enhances efficiency, it also broadens cybersecurity risks. Each integration point becomes a potential entry for attackers seeking to access sensitive fleet data.
In late 2022, for instance, security researchers uncovered an API vulnerability in a connected services provider widely used in North American vehicles. The flaw affected millions of cars, allowing attackers to exploit unauthenticated API endpoints to access vehicle data or remotely control functions like door unlocking and location tracking.
If your fleet relies on similar third-party services, a breach involving location or route data could jeopardize cargo security — or worse, give competitors insights into your operations, weakening your competitive edge.
Asset utilization risk: how vehicle theft could cripple operations
Vehicles are the lifeblood of your fleet, but a cyberattack can strip them from your control in an instant, reducing your available assets and stalling operations. Imagine multiple vehicles being stolen or remotely hijacked: Deliveries are missed, efficiency drops, and customer trust erodes.
In 2023, reports emerged of CAN injection techniques that allowed thieves with minimal technical expertise to steal cars without keys, sometimes in as little as 15 seconds. At Pwn2Own Vancouver 2024, researchers exposed vulnerabilities that could allow remote control of vehicle functions, enabling vehicle theft without any physical access.
If your fleet falls victim to such an attack, the consequences could go far beyond vehicle loss. Replacement and insurance costs could soar, while remaining assets could sit idle due to downtime, severely impacting operational capacity and customer trust.
Cybersecurity from day one: the best long-term investment
With a typical vehicle lifespan of 12 to 15 years, fleet assets are long-term pillars of your operations. But over that same span, the threat landscape is evolving fast. Our automotive threat intelligence shows a 600% surge in vehicle-related cyberattacks over the past four years, driven by increasingly sophisticated attack methods.
How do you protect your fleet for the long haul? Replacing vehicles mid-cycle isn’t a viable option. That’s why cybersecurity must be built into your fleet strategy from the start, across technology, personnel, and management.
Here are key recommendations to establish a strong foundation for cybersecurity that supports the reliability and efficiency of your EV fleet over time.
Enhancing asset utilization
- Choose proven cybersecurity partners: Prioritize suppliers with a track record of compliance with standards and regulations such as ISO/SAE 21434 and UN R155. These partners should support continuous risk management and threat monitoring throughout the vehicle lifecycle.
UD Trucks, a member of the Isuzu Group and a leading Japanese commercial vehicle solutions provider, has adopted a next-gen vehicle security operations center (VSOC) platform. This advanced system leverages contextualized security risk insights to identify emerging threats early, enhance regulatory compliance with standards and regulations like UN R155, and drive continuous quality improvement by seamlessly integrating threat intelligence into the product development lifecycle.
- Deploy runtime protection: Ensure that vehicles are equipped with onboard cybersecurity features, such as intrusion detection and prevention systems (IDS/IPSs), to detect and respond to threats in real time.
Tier IV, the world’s first open-source autonomous driving software platform, integrates an onboard IDS/IPS to secure its autonomous driving systems from runtime threats.
- Enable OTA updates: Work with suppliers that offer regular, secure, and user-friendly over-the-air (OTA) patches to address vulnerabilities swiftly and reduce your fleet’s exposure to emerging threats.
Strengthening fleet security
- Monitor continuously: Gather real-time data from vehicles, charging stations, and supporting infrastructure to detect anomalies early and proactively mitigate threats.
- Leverage threat intelligence: Track dark web activity and correlate findings with supplier vulnerabilities to generate actionable security responses.
- Train staff: Educate drivers, technicians, and managers on cybersecurity best practices for minimizing human error, including how to recognize phishing attempts, suspicious commands, and signs of misuse.
Building a secure ecosystem
- Encrypt end to end: Apply strong encryption to all vehicle communications, data storage, and APIs to prevent unauthorized access and defend against man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks.
- Institutionalize cybersecurity management: Appoint a dedicated cybersecurity lead or team to oversee regular reviews, coordinate across departments, and manage contingency plans for fast recovery and minimal downtime.
- Push for regulation: Engage with industry groups and government bodies to advocate for stronger standards and regulations mandating robust security for EV fleet systems and infrastructure.
Cybersecurity isn’t just a technical concern — it’s the backbone of business continuity, operational performance, and long-term success. It keeps vehicles running, data trustworthy, and assets protected. By embedding cybersecurity into your EV fleet strategy from day one, you position your organization to operate securely and efficiently in an increasingly connected and competitive landscape.
Take proactive steps now, rather than being pushed into action only after a cyberattack compromises your EV fleet.
*Gartner, Market Guide for Commercial Vehicle Fleet Management, Jonathan Davenport and Shivani Palepu, 10 March 2025. (For Gartner Subscribers only) GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.
