--- title: "Refrigerated / Cold Chain Carriers — Email Security Posture | EFROS" description: "Email-security posture of 16,211 active Refrigerated / Cold Chain motor carriers. 78.1% of domains have no enforced DMARC, 8.7% use p=reject. Free, public, source-cited." canonical: https://efros.com/research/us-trucking-email-security-index/by-cargo/refrigerated/ --- - [Home](https://efros.com/) - /[Research](https://efros.com/research/) - /[US Trucking Email Security Index](https://efros.com/research/us-trucking-email-security-index/) - /[By Cargo](https://efros.com/research/us-trucking-email-security-index/by-cargo/) - /Refrigerated / Cold Chain By Cargo / Refrigerated / Cold Chain # Refrigerated / Cold Chain Carriers — Email Security **78.1%** of active refrigerated / cold chain carrier domains have no enforced DMARC. That leaves this segment open to email impersonation, payment-redirect fraud, and cargo theft via phishing. Edition: 2026-Q2 Segment rank: #9 Carriers: 16,211 Domains: 14,538 By [Stefan Efros](https://www.linkedin.com/in/stefanefros-cyberdefense/), CEO & Founder, EFROS Updated · May 19, 2026 No enforced DMARC 78.1% national: 80.1% p=reject 8.7% national: 7.5% Microsoft 365 35.0% national: 38.1% M365 + no DMARC (carriers) 3,656 national: 92,822 MTA-STS 3.2% national: 3.3% DNSSEC 8.0% national: 6.1% Dead domains 745 of 14,538 scanned Total carriers 16,211 745 with dead domain ## Risk bands — Refrigerated / Cold Chain carriers Carrier counts by risk band (composite email-security pain score). Critical = score 70+; Minimal = score <15. | Risk band | Score range | Carriers | Domains | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Critical | score 70+ | 1,240 | 1,172 | | High | score 50–69 | 4,651 | 4,286 | | Medium | score 30–49 | 6,596 | 5,920 | | Low | score 15–29 | 2,835 | 2,296 | | Minimal | score ## Refrigerated / Cold Chain vs. national average No enforced DMARC 78.1% vs 80.1% national p=reject adoption 8.7% vs 7.5% national MTA-STS 3.2% vs 3.3% national DNSSEC 8.0% vs 6.1% national ## What the Refrigerated / Cold Chain numbers actually mean **Segment exposure framing.** Refrigerated and cold-chain loads are time-critical — a redirected payment means delayed dispatch means spoiled cargo. That time pressure is exactly what attackers exploit to get a wire authorized before verification. **DMARC posture.** The refrigerated / cold chainsegment's share of carrier domains with no enforced DMARC sits at **78.1%**, better than the national average by 2.0 points. Refrigerated / Cold Chain carriers adopt enforced p=reject DMARC at a meaningfully higher rate than the national pool. At the protective end of the distribution, 8.7% of segment domains are at p=reject, the only DMARC policy that actually instructs receivers to drop spoofed mail. **Microsoft 365 surface.** Microsoft 365 mailflow adoption sits below the national rate, which shifts the remediation surface toward self-hosted and Google Workspace estates where DMARC has to be configured at the DNS layer rather than flipped on in a tenant policy. That share is **22.6%** of all refrigerated / cold chain carriers — a one-flag-flip remediation set that segment-specific MSPs can clear in a single quarter without touching DNS infrastructure. **Transport encryption.** MTA-STS adoption sits at 3.2%, materially below the threshold a freight payment-redirect attacker would have to clear to be inconvenienced by transport-layer policy. DNSSEC adoption across refrigerated / cold chain carriers runs at **8.0%** (vs 6.1% national). **Risk-band shape.** Refrigerated / Cold Chain's critical-band share is 7.6% versus 8.4% nationally, with the pressure shifting into the high band (28.7% of segment carriers) where one or two control gaps still leave room for impersonation. **Best-practice control for this segment.** For perishables shippers, treat carrier email-impersonation as a cold-chain integrity risk and require DMARC-verified mail before any rate confirmation is honored. ## Compare Refrigerated / Cold Chain with other cargo segments Segments closest in carrier-count rank to Refrigerated / Cold Chain. Each is scored on the same DNS-derived control set, so the comparison is apples-to-apples. [### Liquids / Gas (Tanker) Rank #870.9% no DMARC · 16,694 carriers](https://efros.com/research/us-trucking-email-security-index/by-cargo/tanker-liquids-gas/) [### Chemicals Rank #1068.8% no DMARC · 9,577 carriers](https://efros.com/research/us-trucking-email-security-index/by-cargo/chemicals/) [### Household Goods Rank #781.6% no DMARC · 17,343 carriers](https://efros.com/research/us-trucking-email-security-index/by-cargo/household-goods/) [### Intermodal Containers Rank #1179.5% no DMARC · 9,463 carriers](https://efros.com/research/us-trucking-email-security-index/by-cargo/intermodal/) [### Motor Vehicles Rank #680.2% no DMARC · 22,079 carriers](https://efros.com/research/us-trucking-email-security-index/by-cargo/motor-vehicles/) [← Full US Trucking Email Security Index](https://efros.com/research/us-trucking-email-security-index/) [← All cargo types](https://efros.com/research/us-trucking-email-security-index/by-cargo/) [Switch to state view →](https://efros.com/research/us-trucking-email-security-index/by-state/) ## See where your own domain stands The research is free and self-serve. Run the same public checks on your own domain in about a minute — SPF, DKIM, DMARC, MTA-STS, DNSSEC, and more — and get a scored report by email. No agents, no credentials. [Scan your domain free →](https://efros.com/tools/security-scan/) [Email security for fleets](https://efros.com/industries/trucking-company-msp/) [Talk to EFROS](https://efros.com/contact/?source=trucking-email-research) Data as of 2026-05-20 from public DNS measurements. Statistics are domain-weighted unless noted. Cargo segment membership is based on FMCSA Company Census cargo flags. Methodology: [read the full index](https://efros.com/research/us-trucking-email-security-index/).