Nebraska farmers, researchers seek to raise awareness of cyberattacks to agriculture

KEARNEY, Neb. — Many farmers think nothing of leaving keys in the pickup, and folks in agriculture may be leaving the door wide open when it comes to their technology.

You may think the cow-calf business is old-school, but Brock Elsen's operation depends on technology.

“Track my cows, that's all online, my feed program is online with my feed truck and scales and all in the cloud,” he said.

HUSKER HARVEST DAYS: NEBRASKA FARM BUREAU ON CYBERSECURITY AWARENESS

And the packing plant where cattle ultimately end up is vulnerable, too, as a 2021 attack against JBS showed.

"Attack lasted days but price of beef went up, and we realized it was affecting more of their systems,” said Dr. George Grispos of the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

JBS PAID $11 MILLION RANSOM TO HACKERS

JBS ended up paying $11 million in ransom. Grispos says from individual farms to co-ops and processing plants, there are vulnerabilities throughout agriculture.

“I think it's ripe for opportunity. It’s a community, industry where cybersecurity has never been a concern. Technology is going into the hands of farmers, and it's never been part of the education program,” Grispos said.

He says it's not farmers' fault. They weren't trained on best practices to safeguard operations.

“Who thinks of needing to do updates, do I need to vet every employee who comes on my farm, do I know who they are,” he said.

And farms are a unique environment. Anyone could drive up to a field and mess with a pivot and likely go undetected.

“Not a soul in sight that can stop,” he said.

Plus, precision ag tools collect massive amounts of data.

“By 2050, they reckon every farmer who has technology on their farm will produce 4.1 million data points a day. That is a lot of data,” he said.

And in the hands of a bad actor in another country, that could be used to manipulate markets or steal intellectual property. Those are some of the concerns of Nebraska Farm Bureau members like Brock Elsen. Or, in the case of JBS, the cyberattack resulted in an interruption in production that affected employees and cattle producers.

“If any of that gets disrupted, it's a chain reaction backwards,” Elsen said.

If a plant or co-op is shut down, that could prevent cattle or grain from being delivered. Researchers say one key is educating young people.