Cyber risk remains the top concern for leaders in the transport sector, according to new research from Beazley, as companies face a faster-moving and increasingly complex digital threat landscape.
The findings are based on a survey of 3,500 global business leaders, including senior executives across the transport industry. The results show that cyber risk has moved beyond IT departments and has become a business-wide issue capable of disrupting operations and creating financial losses across supply chains.
The threat is being intensified by the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence and other advanced technologies.
While cyber risk is clearly recognised as a leading concern, Beazley’s data also points to a gap between perceived resilience and real exposure. Many transport businesses report high confidence in their ability to recover, despite acknowledging that cyber threats are becoming more sophisticated and systemic.
Among transport sector respondents, 30% identify cyber risk as the top risk to their business, in line with global findings showing cyber as the leading concern across sectors. A further 24% cite technology disruption, while another 24% point to technology obsolescence, particularly where legacy systems remain in place.
Intellectual property risk is also becoming more prominent, with 22% of transport businesses identifying it as a key concern.
Despite these risks, 83% of transport businesses say they feel prepared for cyber threats, and 83% believe they could recover financially from a cyber attack. Beazley suggests this confidence may not fully reflect the scale of modern cyber disruption.
Only 27% plan to increase investment in cybersecurity and resilience measures, while 22% say data loss, regulatory obligations and fines would have the greatest impact after an incident.
Across industries, resilience is increasingly defined not by whether disruption occurs, but by how far it spreads, how long it lasts and how quickly organisations recover.
The issue is particularly relevant for supply chain-dependent sectors. In manufacturing, for example, 87% of businesses report feeling resilient against cyber threats, yet ransomware attacks result in an average of 11.6 days of downtime and an impact timeline ranging from six to more than 18 months.
Alessandro Lezzi, Group Head of Cyber Risks at Beazley, said the survey highlights a growing misalignment between concern over cyber and technology risks and the perception of resilience. He warned that many organisations may be overestimating their preparedness to absorb the full impact of an attack across their operations.
As businesses become more connected and adopt AI, disruption can spread faster across organisations and supply chains, making incidents harder to contain.
Lezzi said it is encouraging that almost a third of transport businesses plan to increase cybersecurity investment, including access to specialist expertise to better understand exposure, strengthen incident response and prepare for realistic disruption scenarios.
