Evolving – and catching up – with cyber threats | Part 2

22-08-2023 | Smart farming | Article

From contemporary cyber privateers to profit-driven criminals and activist collectives, the range and tactics of cyber criminals are continuously advancing. Certain sectors, such as the agriculture and food sector, have learned the hard way how devastating cyber attacks can be.

While a series of prominent cyber security breaches has raised greater awareness among farmers, food companies and industry groups, agriculture as a whole is falling behind in its readiness to counter malicious and increasingly sophisticated cyber actors.

How the agriculture and food sector is faring in increasingly complex cyber security environment.

In the second part of this Field Trials episode, host Matt engages in a dialogue with Dr. Ali Dehghantanha, an authority in cybersecurity and a professor at the University of Guelph. He leads the university’s Cyber Science Lab, a division devoted to conveying the significance of enhanced cyber security, outlining strategies for achieving it, and offering assistance to those contending with cyber attacks.

Awareness is going up

What precisely is undergoing change? According to Dehghantanha, the number of reports is increasing because awareness of cyber threats is going up, in addition to greater activity on the part attackers.

The type of threat is changing as well as the severity. Where data breaches were once the name of the game, ransomware has become commonplace. Activist organizations which focus on hacking and releasing information from specific targets is also a growing trend, and one Dehghantanha thinks will become a top problem for agriculture and food. As with other sectors of the global economy, the agriculture industry of many countries needs to adopt a modern, standardized cyber security framework.

What to expect from the vendor?

“We would need to set the same thing [as other industries] fairly quickly for the ag-sector, that would help the farmers and vendors understand what to expect from the vendor,” Dehghantanha says. “At the same time that would allow policy makers to get a view of how mature the state of cyber security [is]. That’s something that needs to happen, and I would say happen fairly soon.”

Want to hear more? Watch the full interview, and other Field Trials content, on the Future Farming YouTube channel, or listen to the podcast version on Spotify.