Data Protection & Business Continuity

The data that runs your company is easy to lose

Most transportation companies think about data protection after something breaks. A server drive fails during month-end close. A dispatcher opens the wrong attachment and the file share fills up with encrypted files. A long-time IT person leaves, and nobody knows where the backups go or whether they ever worked. By then the cost is measured in missed loads, late invoices, and a payroll run nobody can calculate.

Freight operations are unforgiving here because the work never stops. Order entry, dispatch, track and trace, billing, AR, driver settlements, IFTA, and maintenance all lean on the same database. When it is down, the office goes back to paper and phone calls, and every hour of lost data has to be rebuilt by hand from rate confirmations, bills of lading, and driver logs.

The warning signs are usually there long before the outage:

• Backups that are never tested. The job reports success every night, but nobody has restored the TMS database to a clean server to prove it works.
• Everything in one building. The server, the backup drive, and the only copy of the scanned PODs all sit in the same room.
• Backups the network can reach. If ransomware can see the backup share, it can encrypt the backup share.
• Shared logins and old accounts. Former employees, generic dispatch logins, and vendor accounts with full rights that were never turned off.
• No written plan. Recovery depends on one person remembering the steps, and that person may be on vacation or long gone.
• Unknown recovery time. Leadership has never been told how long it would really take to get dispatch and billing back up, or how much work would be lost.

Our original site called this service simply "Backed Up and Secured Company Information." The goal hasn't changed: your records are protected, you can get them back, and the business keeps moving when something goes wrong.

What we protect and how

Data protection for a carrier, broker, or private fleet is not a product you buy. It is a set of decisions about what matters most, how fast it must come back, and who is allowed to touch it. We work through those decisions with your leadership and your IT staff, then help put the answers into practice.

1. Backup design and restore testing

We start by inventorying what you actually need to protect: the TMS database, the accounting system, document imaging and scanned BOLs and PODs, EDI archives, fuel card and ELD exports, email, file shares, and the configuration of the servers themselves. Then we look at how each one is backed up today.

• Backup scope, frequency, and retention mapped against how the business uses each system
• Multiple copies, on different media, with at least one copy off site and out of reach of the main network
• Database-aware backups for the TMS, including transaction log handling so you can recover close to the point of failure
• Scheduled test restores to a separate machine, with results written down

A tested restore is the only proof that counts. We measure how long it takes and what you would lose, so the numbers in your plan are real.

2. Disaster recovery and business continuity planning

Disaster recovery is about the technology. Business continuity is about the people still trying to run freight while the technology is down. We plan both.

• Recovery targets. How many hours dispatch, billing, and settlements can be down, and how much data you can afford to re-key, set by leadership and not guessed by IT.
• Recovery runbook. Step-by-step procedures to rebuild the TMS server, restore the database, reconnect interfaces, and verify the data before users log back in.
• Manual fallback. How dispatch keeps covering loads, how drivers get dispatched and paid, and how billing catches up once systems return.
• Contacts and decisions. Who calls whom, who declares a disaster, and who talks to customers.

3. Ransomware readiness

Transportation companies are attractive targets because downtime is expensive and pressure to pay is high. Readiness means you can say no to a ransom demand because you can restore without it.

• Backups that are isolated, immutable, or offline, so an attacker on your network cannot destroy them
• Review of remote access, email filtering, patching, and administrative accounts, which are the usual ways in
• An incident response plan: isolate, assess, restore, communicate
• A tabletop walk-through with your team so the first time you use the plan is not during a real attack

4. Access control and security hygiene

Many security problems in trucking offices are not sophisticated. They come from too many people with too much access for too long. We review who can reach what, and help you tighten it without slowing the floor down.

• User and role review in the TMS, accounting, and network, including dispatch, billing, payroll, and safety roles
• Removal of former-employee and stale vendor accounts, and an offboarding checklist so it stays clean
• Separate administrative accounts, multi-factor authentication where it matters most, and password practices people will follow
• Protection of sensitive records: driver files, pay data, bank details, and customer rate agreements

5. TMS database protection

The database behind your TMS deserves its own attention. It is usually the single most valuable asset in the building after the trucks. We review maintenance jobs, integrity checks, backup chains, and storage, and we confirm the database can be moved to new hardware or a new location cleanly. Before any upgrade, conversion, or server move, we verify a known-good backup exists and has been restored. That habit comes straight from years of upgrade and go-live work.

How a data protection engagement runs

1. Discovery. We interview leadership, IT, and the people who depend on the systems most: dispatch, billing, payroll, and safety. We inventory servers, databases, cloud services, backups, and accounts. This is often part of a broader Technology Assessment.
2. Test. We attempt real restores of the systems that matter, measure recovery time and data loss, and check whether backups are reachable from the main network.
3. Findings and plan. A written report ranks the risks by business impact and cost to fix, with clear recommendations your leadership can approve.
4. Implement. We help put the fixes in place, working with your staff or your existing providers, and manage the work like any other project (see Project & Program Management).
5. Sustain. Scheduled restore tests, access reviews, and plan updates keep protection current as people, systems, and threats change. This fits naturally into an On-Site & Remote Support agreement.

What you get

Who this is for

Carriers, brokers, 3PLs, and private fleets of any size that rely on a TMS and accounting system to run the business, especially if you are:

• Running your TMS on a server in your own office, with no recent restore test
• Without a full-time IT department, or depending on one person who knows how everything works
• Preparing for an upgrade, a legacy TMS migration, or a move to new hardware or the cloud
• Being asked about cyber controls by an insurer, a customer, or a lender
• Growing through acquisition and inheriting another company's systems and habits (see Carrier M&A Tech Due Diligence)

Whatever your segment, from truckload and LTL to brokerage and city cartage, the principle is the same: know what you have, prove you can get it back, and control who can reach it.

Frequently asked questions

TMW and Maddocks are names and trademarks of their respective owners. Strong Tower Consulting is an independent consulting firm and is not affiliated with or endorsed by any software vendor named on this page.