More than 10 million container shipments enter the U.S. each year, but what could be hidden in a cargo container? Detecting human beings, chemicals, biological agents, radionuclear materials or illegal weapons sometimes resembles the search for a needle in the haystack of a million containers in circulation worldwide. Manual customs inspection is time-consuming and inefficient in economic terms. The U.S. Congressional requirement for 100 percent container screening is an ambitious goal and the horizon for its implementation is still unclear. New technologies, including satellites, electronic seals, integrated anti-tamper systems, new container materials, and logical itinerary analysis, provide complementary approaches. In a wirelessly connected world, there will be many opportunities to trace and track containers in the future. The session highlights recent research results that help to answer “What’s in the box?” without the need for manual inspection and with increased confidence in container security. It will highlight results of U.S. researchers and progress in Europe, providing inspiration on how to overcome drawbacks in today’s container security systems based on scientific research. An opportunity to discuss the future of cargo container monitoring, which is a globally connected but technically fragmented challenge in transport security, will be included.