Supply chain visibility has become a buzzword. Every dashboard, platform, and logistics suite claims to offer “real-time visibility” of assets across the globe. But in 2025, visibility isn’t enough. In fact, it might be misleading.
Because the real problem isn’t what you don’t see, it’s what you think you’re seeing but isn’t real.
From Physical Theft to Digital Manipulation
Supply chain security used to be about physical control: sealing containers, securing warehouses, tracking trucks.
But today, attackers aren’t cutting locks or hijacking vehicles. They’re manipulating the data that systems rely on, making it look like everything is fine, even as the shipment goes missing, gets rerouted, or is tampered with.
In 2025, the most sophisticated attacks don’t involve brute force. They involve digital sleight of hand.
Supply chain attacks have surged 431% between 2021 and 2023, and the trajectory hasn’t slowed. At least 36% of IT/security leaders reported seeing supply chain attacks in 2025, with 52% of them driven by AI-powered tactics, a clear shift from manual breach attempts to algorithmically tailored intrusions.
The Problem With “Visibility”
Let’s clarify what “visibility” typically means in modern logistics:
- GPS location of the vehicle
- Movement patterns (ETA, route)
- Basic sensor data (temp, humidity)
- System-generated status updates
- Integration with TMS/ERP for broader context
The issue is almost all of this is:
- Device-based, not shipment-based.
- Software-integrated, not physically verified.
- Push-driven, meaning the system trusts the incoming data blindly.
This trust is dangerous in 2025. 92% of cybersecurity leaders this year observed an increase in supply chain attack attempts, meaning attackers are constantly probing for weak links, often at the visibility layer.
2025 Threats: Beyond Malware and Fraud
In the past, supply chain security risk management focused on cyber hygiene, strong passwords, firewalls, antivirus, etc.
But that assumes threats target systems directly.
What we’re now witnessing is a shift in attack surface:
- Sensor-level attacks at distribution centers and ports, where threat actors intercept data feeds and inject false signals.
- AI-generated supplier scams, where deepfake phone calls and forged certifications trick procurement teams into onboarding fraudulent vendors.
- Cross-system manipulation, where attackers compromise integration points between freight platforms, ERPs, and visibility tools to alter status updates or hide malicious activity.
It’s not just software. The physical side is being hit, too. Cargo theft in the U.S. reached a record high in 2024, with 3,798 reported incidents, up 26% from the previous year, and estimated losses of $455 million officially, with real figures likely crossing $1 billion.
Even more troubling: identity-based theft, such as impersonating legitimate carriers, rose from just 8% in 2020 to nearly one-third of all cargo thefts in 2024. These tactics are almost invisible to traditional visibility tools.
The Illusion of Data Integrity
The deeper issue is trust, specifically, trust in data systems that weren’t designed to be adversarial-aware.
Most logistics data is accepted at face value:
- Did the GPS report a valid coordinate? Must be true.
- Did the temperature log show a safe range? All good.
- Did the EDI message say the shipment was picked up? Mark it as received.
But these systems weren’t built for verification. They were built for efficiency.
And attackers are capitalizing on this efficiency. Consider software dependencies: in open-source repositories like npm and PyPI, malicious incidents rose 1,300% in just three years, and the average package now carries 27 security flaws. If code at the system layer is compromised, your visibility platform could be feeding you false data, and you’d never know.
Visibility Tools Are Easy to Outsmart
The problem isn’t the tools themselves. It’s the model they’re built on.
Most visibility platforms rely on passive data collection and rule-based alerts. They monitor expected behavior and trigger notifications if something “goes wrong.”
But what happens when the system doesn’t know something has gone wrong?
What happens when the wrong behavior looks exactly like the right one, because the data says it is?
Chain of Custody is No Longer a Checklist
Historically, custody was logged manually or through timestamps in ERP systems. A truck arrives, someone scans a barcode, the system logs a handoff. Done.
But that assumes:
- The scan was done by the right person
- At the right place
- On the right asset
- Without coercion or tampering
These assumptions no longer hold.
That’s why so many businesses now recognize this weakness. In one survey by Gallagher, 72% of U.S. companies named cyberattacks as one of their top supply chain concerns, not just IT risks, but real operational threats that can compromise physical logistics flow.
What Verification Looks Like
To understand the difference, consider two statements:
- “The truck is en route.”
- “The truck is en route, and we have tamper-proof confirmation from the asset-level device that it left the secure yard at 14:03, with no door breaches, and the environmental seal intact.”
The first is a guess.
The second is a fact.
Verification means anchoring data to trusted physical evidence, not software events. It means validating that what’s reported matches what actually happened.
And it means treating every signal as potentially hostile unless proven otherwise, a mindset common in cybersecurity, but still rare in logistics.
2025 Security Demands a New Stack
To summarize, here’s why visibility tools, as we know them, are no longer enough:
| Problem | Why It Fails |
| GPS Spoofing | Dashboards show expected location, but cargo is elsewhere |
| Sensor Tampering | Environmental logs look fine, but goods are spoiled |
| EDI Manipulation | Systems process altered instructions as valid |
| Vendor Scams | Fraudulent suppliers bypass due diligence with AI tools |
| Event Faking | Handoffs are logged even when no transfer occurred |
All of these bypasses traditional visibility because visibility assumes honesty. In 2025, that’s a dangerous assumption.
How Contguard Helps You Move Beyond Visibility
Contguard goes beyond standard visibility platforms by delivering verified, tamper-resistant intelligence directly from the asset level. We don’t rely on assumptions from GPS pings or ERP integrations, our IoT sensors monitor cargo in real time, detect anomalies as they happen, and provide secure custody confirmation across every leg of the journey. Whether it’s sensor spoofing, route deviation, or fraudulent handoffs, Contguard gives you data you can trust, rooted in physical truth. In a world where attacks manipulate what systems see, Contguard helps you verify what’s real, and act before damage is done.
Final Thought: Trust is the Attack Surface
In cybersecurity, they say: “Trust is a vulnerability.” The same is now true for supply chains.
As long as your systems trust what they receive without verifying it, you’re exposed. Not to the absence of data, but to the presence of the wrong data.
Visibility tells you what’s happening.
Verification tells you if it’s true.
In 2025, that difference isn’t technical. It’s operational. It’s financial. And it’s existential when it comes to supply chain security.
