For drivers out on the road who use Apex Capital and TCS fuel cards, it has been a rough week. Clarissa Hawes, FreightWaves’ Investigative Reporter, broke the news yesterday that the factoring service and fuel network were both victims of a ransomware attack.
Nothing like the digital age to make your want cash again
BlackByte 2.0 is a ransomware gang that came onto the scene last year that was thwarted when their encryption malware was quickly defeated. But now BlackByte 2.0 is back and struck Apex with a new, more robust software and managed to get pretty deep into its systems.
This has caused major problems for drivers who use Apex’s factoring service and fuel cards. It caused drivers to have to call in their claims and Apex staff members to manually run the settlements.
Some drivers are saying that they are still able to purchase fuel with the TCS fuel cards. But many are claiming they are unable to do so, and therefore will be unable to run their businesses if they cannot get their cards back to working.
This is rough for drivers as factoring companies are becoming a bigger part of the back office structure in small to mid-sized trucking companies. Some drivers do not have the on-hand funding to wait the 30-60 days it takes for some settlements to complete “naturally.”
This generates the question of how many trucking companies can go for an extended amount of time without funding before they go under. Do trucking companies now have the emergency funds available that they should?
Trucking companies should have at least a couple of months in reserve in case of hardships, especially solo to small fleets. When I was an independent contractor, it was preached to have six to eight weeks of liquid capital in the bank.
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