FBI Warns US Farmers of Ransomware Surge

US food stuff offer chains are at risk of potentially devastating ransomware attacks, the FBI has warned.

A new Non-public Marketplace Notification despatched out this week claimed that agricultural cooperatives may well be seen as beautiful targets during the planting and harvesting seasons.

Attacks could bring about economic decline and operational disruption and impression the foods supply chain, given that grain is also applied for animal feed. Compromises at dairy or meat processing facilities can lead to delays which result in spoiled items, the see discussed.

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“The FBI pointed out ransomware attacks throughout these seasons in opposition to 6 grain cooperatives through the drop 2021 harvest and two attacks in early 2022 that could affect the planting season by disrupting the offer of seeds and fertilizer,” it explained.

“Cyber-actors may well perceive cooperatives as profitable targets with a willingness to pay back owing to the time delicate purpose they perform in agricultural output.”

The see outlined multiple examples of unnamed agricultural sector firms that have been compromised by ransomware given that very last year. These include things like a supply chain attack in which a application organization was attacked in July 2021, impacting downstream agricultural shoppers.

“Initial intrusion vectors bundled identified but unpatched prevalent vulnerabilities and exploits, as very well as secondary bacterial infections from the exploitation of shared network assets or compromise of managed services,” the FBI mentioned.

“Production was impacted for some of the targeted entities, ensuing in slower processing because of to guide functions, though other qualified entities missing accessibility to administrative features such as internet websites and email but did not have generation impacted.”

There is an additional urgency for US critical infrastructure companies to strengthen their resilience versus these types of threats, specified multiple warnings that pro-Russian teams might be about to unleash a salvo of attacks.

The 5 Eyes intelligence group this week issued a in-depth alert outlining mitigation techniques, together with the threat procedures employed by both of those Russian condition and cybercrime groups.

The FBI also outlined various best apply recommendations in its see, such as normal patching, multi-factor authentication, disabling RDP ports and increasing personnel cybersecurity consciousness.