Data Security

The Time Is Now: Let’s Prepare Before ‘It’ Hits

Mon, 28 Apr 2025 12:59:39 GMT

Does your farm or ranch have a plan? Are you ready if there is a foreign animal disease outbreak?

The World Health Organization for Animal Health confirmed outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in Germany on Jan. 10, Hungary on March 6 and Slovakia on March 21.

FMD poses no danger to humans, but it is highly contagious. It causes fever and mouth blisters in cloven-hoofed ruminants such as cattle, swine, sheep and goats, and outbreaks often lead to trade restrictions.

If the U.S. has a confirmed case of FMD, every second will matter as the industry tries to control the situation and prevent a catastrophe.

Secure food supply resources have been created by industry experts. These resources can help livestock producers develop plans for the continuity of business, movement and marketing of livestock, milk and wool in the unfortunate event of a foreign disease outbreak.

The use of electronic identification is one of the first steps to help prepare for an outbreak. However, privacy and who has access to data is a question that concerns some producers.

One option for participation is working with a third-party group such as U.S. CattleTrace . On March 13, Drovers reported the partnership between U.S. CattleTrace and Where Food Comes From — “ Smart Partnership Strengthens Traceability .” The two organizations are joining forces to unify and support a voluntary traceability strategy and safeguard the beef supply chain in the event of an outbreak.

The collaboration aims to align resources and expertise, improving disease traceability while maintaining producer-driven decision-making, data privacy and data confidentiality.

U.S. CattleTrace collects four data points: animal identification, date, time and GPS location.

CattleTrace will work with any operation in the supply chain looking to facilitate the flow of data for animal disease traceability purposes. The data collected is securely locked up and only used in the case of a disease outbreak, and no other identifying data is included.

Bottom line: Knowledge and preparedness can help producers develop and put plans in place if a disease outbreak occurs. As an industry, let’s not get caught being unprepared. Now is the time to be proactive, not reactive.

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Agro-Terrorism and the Food Supply Chain: This is a Different World, Rose Says

Mon, 10 Oct 2022 23:43:03 GMT

If you want to disrupt a government, disrupt the food supply.

“Agriculture is critical infrastructure,” Andrew Rose, strategic advisor to the food and agriculture supply chain, said during Farm Journal’s Farm Country Update on Sept. 28. “Three weeks without food and agriculture, and it’s over. You don’t mess with food and ag.”

Years ago, Rose was working at a large agricultural lender and decided to run a tabletop exercise as part of a teambuilding workshop simulating a ransomware attack on the company.

“Walking away from that exercise, I began thinking, is this a blind spot in the food and agriculture supply chain? Are we aware of the threats out there and the implications they can have? Not only to us as producers and processors, but to the entire critical infrastructure, and our ability to feed our population? I kept getting more questions than I got answers,” Rose said.

Since then, Rose has dedicated himself to helping the agricultural community get more prepared and understand the threats knocking at the gate.

What is Agro-Terrorism?

Agro-terrorism, or the deliberate introduction of a disease agent against livestock or into the food chain, is typically a tactic that can be used to either generate or cause mass socio-economic disruption or as a form of direct human aggression. Rose says there are a lot of definitions out there, but from his research, for a terrorist act to occur, there needs to be violence.

He said the FBI constantly hammers home the concept of sympathy versus action. Rose points out that having strong feelings about something isn’t wrong – acting on it is.

“There’s a First Amendment right to say and feel what you want to about any given subject. You can walk outside and put posters up, you can get a bullhorn, cowbells, whatever you want. As soon as you take an action, though, that’s when things change. That’s when risk and consequence come into the equation,” Rose said.

For the agriculture community in particular, it hurts when someone stands outside of your property and waves a sign, says bad things or shows a picture of things that aren’t true, he said. But until these people take action – until they steal some pigs or commit an act of violence – it’s their right to do that.

“It’s a hard pill to swallow, but it’s something that if you go to the FBI, they’ll say sympathy versus action,” Rose said. “Don’t take that action.”

How Can You Protect Yourself and Your Farm?

1. Pay attention to the threat actors.
Know who the threat actors are, including transnational terrorist groups, domestic terrorists, corporate espionage and activists. Engage with organizations like the Animal Agriculture Alliance and Protect the Harvest to keep up to date on threats and movements. Subscribe to their newsletters and learn from their experts.

2. Guard yourself on social media.
“Not only is social media a real threat, it’s an ongoing threat,” Rose said.

When he’s speaking to agricultural audiences, the first thing he tells them to do is go to Facebook, click on their privacy settings, and find out which apps and websites they are connected to with their account. Some apps can trick you into clicking “OK” allowing them to sell your information to third parties.

“There are computer programs scraping every bit of social engineering that’s publicly available on every human being and compiling it so they have those demographical profiles, whether it’s specific to you as an individual, or you as a class of individuals for certain types of messaging,” Rose said.

3. Beware of passive insider threats.
Passive insider threats are people who resist change and fall victim to social engineering. Sometimes, they’re told to do certain phishing exercises, or complete multi-factor authentication for their accounts, and they ignore it.

“They use their work devices to go to personal websites or places they probably shouldn’t go and they click on things they shouldn’t click on. Every employee of every company or organization is part of its cybersecurity defense,” Rose said. “If they’re not paying attention, if they’re not actively aware of the opportunity that threat actors are looking for, and they’re just letting them in, that’s a big insider threat.”

4. Know your FBI agent.
If something happens to your organization, whether it’s a terrorist attack or cybercriminal attack, it’s likely you will be in a high state of emotion. Rose said that’s probably the last time you want to make your first introduction to your FBI agent.

“There are 56 field offices across the United States. The FBI is there to help victims of crimes, they’re not going to go through your filing cabinets and look for other things. They want to help you. They want to figure out who did it, how they did it, and they want to go and oppose risk and consequence on your behalf,” Rose said.

That is why he suggests calling your local FBI agent or at least finding your point of contact before a problem happens.

“The world will never be the way it was – those days are gone, it is not coming back,” Rose said. “The world is as it is today, and we need to be realistic about how it’s going to be tomorrow. The ability for us in the U.S. to feed our population, that’s the North Star. Let’s make sure we do that. Be suspicious and be aware, this is a different world.”

Check out Farm Country Update and learn more from Andrew Rose about how you can protect yourself, your farm and your agricultural business.

Cybersecurity on the Farm: How Could Your Operation Be At Risk?

Mon, 19 Sep 2022 15:19:20 GMT

The terms cybersecurity and cyber insurance are more than just concepts in the agriculture industry, says Kansas State University cropping systems economist Terry Griffin.

He said the agricultural industry is becoming more digital, so adaptable cybersecurity – or, the protection of computer systems from information disclosure or theft, or damage to hardware, software or electronic data -- is more important than ever.

“As a producer, we have to think about who (our) biggest threat is potentially,” Griffin said. “The Kansas farmland market is fierce, but not as fierce as in Illinois, so the biggest threat to a Kansas farmer could be seen as a different entity.”

Griffin said cybersecurity risk depends on the location and risk preference of the farmer and who they see as their biggest threat. This could be as simple as someone getting a copy of data or insights, or data becoming inaccessible to the farmer.

“There could be solar flares that impact space weather that can adversely affect GPS,” he said. “In that event, we could be at a disadvantage during planting because there might not be row markers on the large planters anymore.”

He said such a situation can also affect harvest because farmers won’t be able to log data.

Griffin said time is of the essence when a cybersecurity breach is detected, and if farmers decide to not plant and wait a day because the GPS is down -- or they can’t control the overlaps -- it could have negative implications, such as lower yields.

There are currently no state or federal laws that cover cybersecurity for farms. Griffin suggests a couple ideas to protect farm data:

• Treat farm data as a trade secret.

• Have employees sign a non-disclosure agreement.

• Change passwords quarterly.

• Make sure when an employee leaves that their connections to farm data has been stopped.

“There are some actionable things that farm operators can do to show that their data has value,” Griffin said. “These are some best management practices for data management.”

He said farmers should build up these practices over time so that they become habit.

Griffin notes a resource to learn more about cybersecurity on the farm at HeinOnline.

Griffin’s full discussion on this topic is available on the weekday radio program, Agriculture Today.

Senators on Cyberattacks: ‘Agricultural Security is National Security’

Fri, 05 Nov 2021 14:05:18 GMT

Schreiber Foods, an international dairy processing company in Green Bay, Wis., is the most recent to report a “cyber event” two weeks ago. It’s reported $2.5 million in ransom halted computer systems from Saturday to Monday. Speculations continue as Schreiber has yet to formally confirm or deny the allegations.

Cyberattacks and ransomware have impacted agriculture this year with JBS in June, Colonial Pipeline in July and Fort Dodge, Iowa-based New Cooperative in September, among others.

Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) took the floor on Monday to say these attacks hinder advanced agricultural practices: “As Iowa farmers adopt new technologies to get their crops to market, their exposure grows to similar attacks.”

Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) followed suit, saying, “The ag sector is designated as critical infrastructure but historically has not received robust cybersecurity support from the government.”

Advancing technology and fulfilling food demands while also working to improve soil and water quality “demands heavy reliance on interconnected devices and the internet, creating vulnerability,” she adds.

Agriculture supply chain criminals are rapidly working the system, says Davis Hake, co-founder and vice president of policy at Resilience Insurance, a cyber insurance solutions company. In the past two years, he says there’s been an estimated 300% increase in ransomware money taken in by the Ransomware Task Force.

“Cyber criminals will focus on people doing the attacks and then they have a market that sells those victims to folks who go through the extortions,” Hake says. “Then there’s a whole separate system for laundering that money.”

Hake, who previously served on the Obama Administration’s National Security Council writing cybersecurity legislation, says we have two avenues to address the cyberattacks:

1. Step away from large automation trends such as IT infrastructure systems that sacrifice efficiency.
2. Establish tactical policy to crush the issue.

The Biden Administrations addressed cybersecurity in a national security memorandum. Of the legislation, Ernst says, “the plan is voluntary and would severely limit its effectiveness.”

Following the memorandum, Senators Ernst, Grassley, Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), and Jon Tester (D-MT) have offered permanent representation on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. to address cybersecurity issues.

Both Grassley and Ernst stress cybersecurity should be a primary focus for congressional leaders, as “Agricultural security is national security.”

Drone Wars: Agriculture Caught In The Middle Of Global Tension

If you are in agriculture and the latest high-tech drone is on your Christmas list, then you might want to ask Santa for something else before it’s too late. One of the largest consumer drone manufacturers is on the naughty list.

No, it is not Santa’s naughty list, but instead, it’s the U.S. Department of Defense’s (DoD) naughty list.

The company in question is Chinese drone maker DJI. In 2022, the DoD added DJI to its list of Chinese military companies (CMCs). After a delisting petition from DJI in July 2023, DoD ultimately responded by redesignating the drone company as a CMC in January 2024.

This growing crackdown on Chinese technology companies stems from U.S. government agencies implementing key provisions of the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, which Congress passed to help fight espionage enabled by foreign technology companies. The U.S. Treasury and Commerce departments also have DJI on their own blacklists.

The news got much worse for DJI in September as the House of Representatives passed the Countering CCP Drones Act. The legislation would essentially place a domestic ban on DJI devices by prohibiting them from operating on U.S. communications infrastructure. It is doubtful a final verdict on DJI’s fate in the U.S. will be rendered until a new Congress and administration begin work in 2025, but if passed, then it could ground all DJI drones within the U.S.

Caught in the Middle
Due to the immense market share DJI has in the U.S., the impact could be quite disruptive, especially in the short term. Several U.S. agriculture drone service companies that have been built on the backs of DJI’s technology could soon have their wings clipped if the ban becomes reality.

It has been more than a decade since commercially affordable drone technology landed on farms all across this country. The initial value proposition drones brought to the table was both intriguing and mesmerizing. Finally, you could visualize and analyze your crops, land and assets in ways that were more in-depth and instantaneous than ever before. Plus, you’ve got to admit that flying a drone around your corn field is a lot more fun than cleaning out a grain bin or bucking hay bales.

As it relates to agriculture, the drone industry has seen incredible advancements in technology and application since drones first took flight. In the early days, a modified pocket camera from Best Buy and suspect Russian imaging software were needed to make the whole process work. Today’s drones are available with all kinds of bells and whistles ranging from standard 4K resolution to thermal imaging and even lidar mapping sensors. Thousands of images from hundreds of drones are now processed in the cloud by companies such as Pix4D and DroneDeploy. Meanwhile, companies such as Rantizo and Guardian Agriculture offer specialized drone spraying services for ag retailers and producers. Progress for sure. Game-changing? Not quite.

Last Year’s Forgotten Toy
After more than a decade, it seems agricultural adoption of drone technology has hit a virtual ceiling and is stuck in a holding pattern over some corn field in Iowa. The acceptance and integration just haven’t happened at the same pace compared with how agriculture has responded to other innovations such as auto-steer, yield monitoring or variable-rate spraying.

The obvious question is: “Why aren’t drones and drone-related services further along by now?”

When answering that question, one could quickly run out of fingers to point the blame. It is easy to point first at the government, specifically the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Given its rules, you still cannot fly a drone higher than 400', it still can’t weigh more than 55 lb., and you still can’t let it out of your sight.

Foreign drone companies, especially DJI, have exploited FAA’s 55-lb. weight limit to the detriment of the industry’s advancement. By flooding the market with cheap technology, DJI was able to push out much of the manufacturing competition in this arena. In turn, and probably by design, that meant any complementary technology and software that U.S.-based companies wanted to develop had to be done with DJI setting the rules and protocols. This alone should give one pause as China isn’t afraid of simply coopting such ideas and calling them its own.

Data from Purdue University’s annual precision agriculture dealership survey lays out a damning verdict when it comes to the adoption and economic sustainability of current drone tech. The 2024 study showed only 27% of ag retailers currently offer drone services. Another 25% of retailers are “farming” this work out to other companies. Of the ag retailers that do offer such services, only 9% say the services are profitable.

Unprofitable, Impractical
The problem is this: expecting today’s class of drones to operate effectively and efficiently is like asking a 2,500-acre-farmer to go out and harvest his crop with a John Deere 45 combine from the 1950s.

The FAA needs to get out of the way and allow drones to get bigger, smarter and more capable in the field of agriculture. The agency is starting to show it can do this for other industries, such as air transportation. In October, the FAA published 880 pages of special regulations, which will allow drone transportation companies to start flying people in their “air taxis” around city skylines.

It’s time our industry recognizes drones as serious tools in the agronomic toolbox instead of just “cool” toys for farmers. And if our government is so concerned about our national security that it needs to take away our Chinese toys, then it needs to open doors to better alternatives by clearing the regulatory and economic paths to allow for bigger, faster “Made in the USA” drones and services to rule our skies and fly over our farmland.