Protecting yourself against cyber security threats on the farm

By Lilian Schaer for Livestock Research Innovation Corporation 

High profile cyberattacks are increasingly making headlines in Canada as criminals target retailers, municipalities, health care providers and critical infrastructure. The agri-food sector is not immune from such attacks and its vulnerability is increasing the more it becomes digitized and increases its reliance on sensors, data collection and online connectivity. 

That’s because unlike most other sectors of the economy, agriculture, especially at the primary production level, is made up of many small, independent businesses where IT resources are limited, and cyber security has up until now not registered high on the priority list. 

It should be, though, noted Dr. Ali Dehghantanha in a presentation at Canadian Dairy XPO earlier this year organized by the University of Guelph’s Research Innovation Office. Dehghantanha is a Canada Research Chair and professor in cyber security at Guelph and frequently gets called in to help farms and businesses who have become targets of cyber crimes. 

“Hackers don’t discriminate, they look for low-hanging fruit and if you have an environment that can be remotely accessed, that means they can find you,” he explained. “If you are vulnerable and it takes them five minutes to hack you, they will. They will place ransomware and demand payment.” 

Ransomware – where hackers lock down a system by encrypting its data and only release it when a ransom has been paid – is a common form of cyber attack, as is a data breach, where criminals steal customer, business or financial information. 

He cited the case of a ransomware attack on a southern Ontario dairy farm that he’d been involved in. The farm became aware of the issue when critical on-farm systems stopped working and their local IT support found ransom notes on several devices on the farm’s network demanding payment. 

They’d been attacked previously and had simply paid the ransom, but this time, the criminals were asking for more money, so Dehghantanha was called in to help. His team was able to decrypt the ransomware and get the farm back online, but the farm declined further post-attack monitoring.  

“If they have compromised you a few times, they usually come back because they know your network and yes, we were called back. This time, the attackers ransomed the robotic milking system, and encrypted the fobs (cow collars) and all connected systems,” he recalled. “The biggest lesson here: you need proper security monitoring in place even after an attack.” 

Not only does cyber security protect the farm business itself, but it can also be useful in preventing lawsuits. Dehghantanha cited another example where a farm was attacked by cyber criminals and their compromised systems were in turn used to successfully target a bank – and the bank ended up suing the farm for not taking adequate steps to protect its digital networks.  

“There’s not an expectation that a farm would have the same level of security as banks, but you must be able to show that you have enough security related to the size of your business to protect yourself and your data,” Dehghantanha said. 

A usual expectation of a business is to have secure architecture and passive defense: using strong, individual passwords and regularly updating software, as well as having some kind of monitoring mechanism in place to alert to threats. 

“When you are seeing something observable like ransomware, that’s the last step. The hackers are done with your system and have already stolen what they want. They could have been in here for weeks or months already,” he noted. 

Cyber security threats in the agri-food industry come from three main areas: 

• Opportunistic cyber criminals. These are the major threat actors who are looking for low-hanging fruit and choosing the targets that will get them the maximum return for the lowest time investment. Victims who choose to pay will likely be targeted repeatedly, he warned. 
• State-sponsored hacking teams. Dehghantanha and his team have seen the highest amount of activity from Chinese and Iranian hacking teams who are active in compromising sensors and devices across the entire food supply chain, from farms to food processing and ports. 
• Activists. The first case of this nature surfaced in Ontario in 2023, when a hog farm was targeted not for money but to publicly confess to cruelty to animals and threatened with the release of video footage of animal abuse (which was not actually related to this farm). This is an area that Dehghantanha sees as a growing risk to the sector. 

To offer protection for the agri-food sector, Dehghantanha’s lab, with funding from the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Agribusiness has developed a security monitoring system that is available to farms and farm businesses in the province by contacting Dehghantanha. 

His lab is also actively raising awareness of the issue in the industry through presentations, participating at tradeshows, and offering workshops and tabletop simulation exercises, as well as working with other organizations to build a cyber security framework for Canadian farmers, vendors and service providers. 

Most importantly, though, he is helping to train the next generation. Cyber security is very different in banking or healthcare than it is in agri-food, so the industry needs trained experts who understand the sector and its needs, he noted. 

Dr. Janos Botschner helped create resources specifically for farmers as part of the federally funded Cyber Security Capacity in Canadian Agriculture project, including practical steps to reduce cyber security risk: 

• Make sure hardware and software is kept up to date. Use strong passwords that aren’t shared between employees, and make sure you remove access from employees who no longer work for you.
• Back up your most important information regularly and store it in a safe place.  
• Never use public WiFi to check your on-farm systems when you’re away. Instead, purchase and use a Virtual Private Network (VPN) or connect to your monitoring apps using the cellular data on your device. 
• Don’t click on un-verified links in emails or text messages.
• Don’t overshare information online about operations and vacation plans. 
• Never reveal sensitive business or personal information to unsolicited callers. Always check back with a caller who says they are from a financial services provider. 
• Know which devices, sensors, computers, servers, mobile devices, automated equipment, environmental control systems, financial systems, and other hardware are connected in your on-farm networks. 
• List all the suppliers whose services involve points of electronic contact with your on-farm systems and question them about their cyber security safeguards.

Livestock Research Innovation Corporation is funded in part by the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership (Sustainable CAP), a five-year, federal-provincial-territorial initiative. This article is provided by LRIC as part of its ongoing efforts to report on research, innovation, and issues affecting the Canadian livestock industry.

More information about cyber security on-farm: 

University of Guelph Cyber Science Lab
Cyber Barn Raising – Enhancing Cyber Security in Agriculture
Canadian Centre for Cyber Security  

This article was originally published in the August 2024 edition of Ontario Beef.