‍CEO Dan Herbatschek Issues Formal Advisory: New Customer Survey Results Show Holiday Demand is Actively Exploited by Automated, Advanced Threat Patterns

As the global logistics industry contends with its annual surge in parcel volume, Dan Herbatschek, Founder and CEO of Ramsey Theory Group, has released a formal advisory based on a new survey of 100 enterprise customers. The analysis confirms a critical shift in the threat landscape: attackers are leveraging increasingly sophisticated, automated AI techniques to exploit operational complexities across carriers, fulfillment centers, and last-mile networks during this peak demand period.

Herbatschek argues that the holiday rush, characterized by high traffic and operational pressure, now serves as an ideal environment for cyber adversaries who rely on concealment and confusion.

“Peak season used to mean peak shipping volume, but now it also means peak AI-enabled threat activity,” said Dan Herbatschek. “Adversaries are blending synthetic identities, automated reconnaissance, and model-manipulation attacks into the natural holiday traffic surge. Logistics companies must assume AI is being used against them—and deploy their own AI defensively with human oversight. The organizations that act now will be the ones that successfully protect revenue, customer trust, and service reliability during the most critical month of the year.”

The Top Three Emerging AI-Driven Cybersecurity Vectors

The Ramsey Theory Group survey results identify three primary risk categories where AI is actively being weaponized against the structural weaknesses of peak season logistics:

1. AI-Enhanced Parcel Redirection Fraud and Account Takeover

Threat actors are leveraging generative AI to craft highly persuasive synthetic communication—including deepfake voice calls, SMS messages, and phishing emails—that meticulously mimic the authoritative tones of carriers, dispatchers, and marketplace representatives.  This sophisticated social engineering is designed to manipulate employees or customers into compromising credentials, updating payment data, or, critically, changing delivery addresses, enabling high-value parcel theft under the cover of seasonal traffic.

2. Model Manipulation and Data Poisoning Targeting Critical AI Systems

Logistics relies heavily on machine learning for core operational functions, including route optimization, volume forecasting, capacity planning, and dynamic pricing. Threat actors are no longer targeting just the data itself, but the algorithmic integrity of these systems. Even subtle, adversarial data inputs can corrupt the predictive capabilities of these models, leading to system-wide operational chaos: misrouted freight, artificially induced capacity constraints, or distorted cost estimates—all designed to maximize disruption during the tightest operational window of the year.

3. AI-Powered Botnets Attacking Logistics APIs and Shipment Portals

The natural spike in holiday demand provides an exceptional opportunity for AI-driven botnets to camouflage malicious activities within normal high traffic volumes. These advanced botnets conduct automated reconnaissance, execute large-scale credential stuffing attacks, and indiscriminately scrape sensitive shipment data. High-availability vectors like tracking systems, rate-shopping APIs, and warehouse-management integrations become high-value targets due to their sensitive data exposure and continuous operational use.

A Mandate for Defensive AI and Cyber Posture

To mitigate these intelligent threats, Ramsey Theory Group advises logistics providers to immediately elevate their systems to first-class security assets. Key defensive steps include: strengthening identity and access controls across all operational systems; fortifying and continuously monitoring APIs and partner integrations; securing the AI supply chain; and deploying dedicated defensive AI solutions managed with human-in-the-loop oversight.

The capacity to act against these sophisticated, AI-enabled threats will fundamentally determine which organizations maintain operational fidelity, protect their revenue streams, and preserve customer trust throughout the year's most crucial shipping period.