Freight Caviar Podcast: Highway’s CCO, Michael Caney, on Cybersecurity in Freight

Today we sat down with Michael Caney, Chief Commercial Officer at Highway, a technology company located in Dallas, Texas. Michael talks about the importance of being adaptive in cybersecurity, the risks of sharing fraud prevention strategies, and how Highway validates carrier profiles.

We started off our conversation on the importance of adaptability in cybersecurity—in Michael’s eyes, that is the most important thing. “Because fraud vectors adapt and change, and that’s the reason why Highway has to be adaptive. It's a combination of a couple of things, right? One is looking at digital activity and physical activity, and two is listening to the community, understanding there are really good humans that track.”

Michael touched on the subject of the international nature of freight fraud and double brokers—the best con artists in the world. A young broker might not always recognize he’s talking to a double broker on the other side of the screen, but the “script” always stays the same. The worst thing a broker can do is help a carrier pass— “I got a ton of those emails. ‘Hey man, how do you help this carrier get through?’ And my response was, you don't. And then it was like, ‘What do I tell the carrier?’ You don't tell them anything. You tell them they don't pass. ‘No’ is a complete sentence.”

He also emphasized the dangers of sharing details publicly—he advises against sharing screenshots because you “cannot trust this carrier who's trying to figure out how to make their profile look a certain way so they can get through. I would say the biggest problem is allowing bad actors to gain intelligence.”

Michael also shared his views on the realities of government assistance in fraud prevention— “Is the government doing something? I don't know, maybe. It's one of the most under-resourced divisions.”

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