Secro, the new-generation e-bill of lading company, announces receipt of the internationally recognized accreditation for cybersecurity ISO 27001:2022, further increasing the protection of its customers’ freight transaction data. Secro is effectively digitizing paper bills of lading and safely securing related business-critical information worldwide. Earlier this year, Secro delivered the first, new-generation e-bill of lading solution without a private rulebook agreement between participants.

The majority of bills of lading and supporting documents are created patching together content from emails, chats, phone calls and legacy software. Once printed, the documentation is couriered to multiple receivers across the globe, with no way to track where documents are located. This process exposes critical business information such as suppliers’ and buyers’ identity, sell and purchase activities, pricing, trade origin and destination. Business-critical data, either printed on non-traceable, physical documents or stored into unprotected digital devices and applications, are left at the mercy of to any sort of data leak, ransomware, phishing, and exploitation from fraudulent actors. As recently estimated in a recent report from IBM , a single data breach can cost a staggering $4.45MM.

Secro solves this problem by providing a simple, user-friendly yet highly secure application where the entire bill of lading lifecycle, from drafting shipping instructions to printing and exchanging originals can be done in the most secure manner. In compliance with ISO/IEC 27001:2022 standard, Secro’s software and processes are built around the information pillars of availability, confidentiality, and integrity. This means that business-critical documents and information, once digitized on Secro, are available only to the people authorized after they are securely identified, and only when necessary. Above all, e-bills of lading and related information cannot be altered, forged, counterfeited, or corrupted, thus drastically removing the likelihood of fraud and cyber-crime.

“Today, the exchange of e-documents of title, such as electronic bills of lading (eBL), is not only about speed and legal reliability, but above all about information security,” said Michele Sancricca, Co-founder, and CEO of Secro. “There is no point in digitizing a document as critical as the bill of lading without creating a very robust cyber-security framework. This is of paramount importance for beneficial cargo owners, carriers and above all banks.”

It is easy to run trade on highly secure Secro e-bills of lading. Onboarding is within minutes on the Secro platform after passing AI-driven know-your-customer, know-your-business and anti-money-laundering checks. Then, once authenticated, shipping instructions are drafted and presented to carriers. The carrier’s signature is done using state-of-the-art encryption, and the original e-bill of lading is tokenized on an immutable digital ledger, that only its holder can access. The original e-bill of lading is stored in a digital wallet, along with tight control of its transfer to trading partners. Every copy and printed original are QR-coded, and its authenticity can be instantaneously verified with a mobile phone through the Secro Notary service. All data will be stored in military-grade-secure data centres, with high availability and resistance to cyber-attacks.

“At Akitra we see cyber-risk as a real threat to companies across the globe, and Secro’s accreditation is a statement on their commitment to being a highly secure digital provider,” says Naveen Bisht, Founder and CEO of Akitra. “Many digital providers treat compliance as an afterthought and only get around to it when they’ve seen major prospects walk away — but Secro was smart enough to use our automation to get in front of their customers’ needs and achieve compliance fast and efficiently.”