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Transportation and logistics enterprises are undergoing a period of rapid technical transformation. They rely heavily on both physical and digital infrastructure to support modern, distributed IT environments. Furthermore, as supply chains become more connected, cloud-enabled, and AI-enabled network complexity and cybersecurity risk have increased. Organisations now operate global, hybrid environments supporting warehouses, fleets, air and sea transport, and real-time systems. These changes have all created an urgent need for resilient, high-performance and secure network infrastructure.
Respondents grapple with managing costs, ransomware threats, and GenAI challenges in their network environments

Transportation and logistics organisations indicated that their top networking and network security priority over the next 12 months is simplifying and lowering network costs (70%), followed by enhancing network performance and security visibility (57%) and reducing workload on IT teams (51%). This demonstrates the importance of better operational efficiency and visibility for transportation and logistics firms, with organisations looking to minimise manual oversight and gain more transparent insights into performance and risk.

Other key findings include:
• Cybersecurity is top daily challenge: Organisations said that staying ahead of cybersecurity threats (81%) is the biggest day-to-day networking challenge, followed by cost-effective modernisation (62%) and understaffed IT teams (60%).
• Ransomware vexes the industry: Ransomware and malware threats (77%) are the top network security concern in the industry, with policy enforcement (66%) and remote access control (64%) close behind.
• Organisations aren’t ready for GenAI: Only 28% of respondents have started implementing solutions to mitigate GenAI network and security challenges, while 56% are either still evaluating GenAI risks or are unprepared.
• Hybrid IT infrastructure dominates: Three quarters of respondents (74%) rely on a hybrid mix of private data centres and cloud environments, making flexibility and connectivity across environments critical.
• Legacy apps moving to the cloud: Most respondents are actively migrating or planning to migrate legacy apps to the cloud, introducing transitional complexity.

The report’s findings complement and contrast with the insights from Aryaka’s recent State of Network Security in Manufacturing (2024) report. According to the data from each report, both industries prioritise cost control, visibility and network modernization, while limited IT resources make modernisation difficult. However, transportation respondents place more emphasis on mobility and remote access control. In addition, transportation and logistics organizations demonstrated a slightly lower readiness for GenAI adoption.

“To gain agility and accommodate rapidly evolving supply chains, transportation and logistics enterprises are relying more on hybrid IT, highly distributed cloud deployments and GenAI. But these technologies are introducing new network performance, security and visibility challenges that the sector hasn’t been equipped to effectively manage with legacy infrastructure,” said Ken Rutsky, Chief Marketing Officer at Aryaka. “The industry needs to modernise their approach to networking to mitigate these challenges and successfully move their businesses into the future. Solutions such as Aryaka Unified SASE as a service provides the best path forward via network and security convergence, giving transportation and logistics firms enhanced network performance, security, and observability at scale across their highly distributed, hybrid environments.”

The report reflects the challenges felt by several Aryaka customers within the transportation and logistics sector. As Rajeev Nair, General Manager of IT Infrastructure and Security at global airline and cargo carrier Cathay Pacific, explained: “Aryaka’s Unified SASE solution and managed services will support Cathay’s growth as network demand increases, while allowing us to remain agile and secure in the process. As we continue to rebuild our business, we need a partner that could have an impact on our network and security, limit downtime and interruptions, and give us the flexibility to expand our network and bandwidth with less lead time.”