TAKEAWAYS
“As organizations look to AI to help manage supply chain risk, they face a critical question: How can they use AI to support decision-making without exposing sensitive information or intellectual property to public large language models?” DAVID WEEKS Supply Chain Industry Practice Lead, Moody’s OVERHEARD Phishing and impersonation attempts targeting Highway’s own brand rose 282% quarter over quarter , adding 1,740 entries to its impersonation watch list. 25.6% of reported thefts involved ownership-change fraud, up from 23% in Q1—even as ownership-discrepancy alerts fell 40.9% . “Almost every successful theft starts with a bad actor exploiting your trust,” says Demi Ramon, Highway’s VP of risk. “They’re counting on a compromised contact method to appear legitimate.” The surge coincides with regulatory shifts—FMCSA’s move to MOTUS, the Supreme Court’s Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II ruling, and the decertification of 15 ELD providers—that tightened identity verification industry-wide. The report’s findings show the uptick clearly: 50% of classified fraud vectors in Q2 involved communication-based attacks, up from 42.7% in Q1. Highway blocked 784,201 fraudulent inbound emails, up 48.5% quarter over quarter and 58.3% year over year . 109,995 fraudulent or spoofed phone calls were intercepted, up 53.2% from Q1 and 159.3% year over year . For years, the fight against freight fraud focused largely on catching fabricated carrier identities. Today, the approach is changing. As it becomes harder to fabricate a fake carrier from scratch, criminals increasingly hijack the trust already built into legitimate operations, according to the Q2 2026 Freight Fraud Index Report from Highway. The new focus is on communication-based attacks, including compromised inboxes, spoofed emails, account takeovers, and impersonation calls, which now make up half of all classified fraud vectors, according to the report. FREIGHT FRAUD TAKES A NEW FORM
INDUSTRIAL REAL ESTATE STAGES A COMEBACK
The U.S. industrial real estate market is on the path to recovery, according to Savills Research’s Q2 2026 State of the U.S. Industrial Market report. Leasing activity in the first half of 2026 reached 490.6 million square feet, up 27.1% from the same period last year. It’s the strongest first half since the 2021-2022 boom. The report highlights the following trends: The supply-demand gap that defined the past two years is closing. New space coming online outpaced demand by just 2.6% in the first half of 2026, the closest those two lines have been in four years. Vacancy held at 8.2% and asking rents nudged up to $9.74 per square foot. 3PLs and manufacturers account for 65% of leasing over the past four quarters. The tightest segment of the market is large-format space of 750,000 square feet and above, where vacancy has dropped 160 basis points YoY. Regionally, the Sun Belt still leads on absorption , but the Heartland is closing the gap. Chicago, Columbus, Denver, Detroit, and Salt Lake City are attracting a broadening tenant base as companies look for alternatives to coastal and Sun Belt markets. The data center boom is an emerging driver to watch . Companies that build, cool, power, and equip data centers have become major industrial tenants in markets such as Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, and Atlanta, leasing large blocks of space for manufacturing and logistics operations tied to AI infrastructure. Construction starts are creeping back up , led by speculative development. The pipeline is rising, but it remains 61.2% below its 2022 peak, so any supply response will be gradual.
16 Inbound Logistics • August 2026
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