Ag Vulnerability

By Lisa Lupo

America’s farms and agricultural giants are not exempt from cyberattacks. In fact, as farmers and agribusinesses rely more on data, with satellite-guided tractors and algorithm-driven planting services, the farming sector is increasingly vulnerable to cyberattacks. For industrial farmers, data breaches and manipulation are especially worrisome, considering that many rely on new farm-management services that collect information on soil content and past crop yields to generate planting recommendations.

Although agriculture has not been a prime target for hackers, ag companies have been hacked. Eighty-seven percent of farmers do not have a response plan if a security breach were to occur at a company holding their data, according to an October 2014 Farm Bureau survey. But only about 5% of those surveyed said that companies managing their information had presented a security-breach plan.

Source: Homeland Security Newswire