FBI has issued a ransomware attack alert to the agriculture sector in the United States as the current time seems to be the busiest for the said sector. Hackers are planning to hit a big blow to the agriculture sector to create production and supply shortages across the United States.
As the law enforcement alerted the critical infrastructures like power, water and transit from malware attacks, the hackers might have shifted their focus towards the agriculture sector. One is because other sectors are following healthy cyber hygiene that is strong to breach. And two, because of the reality that the agri-sector doesn’t bother much about cyber attacks and so is showing laxity.
Most of the production and supply chain in the agriculture sector is operated through machines and any impact on their digital functions can lead to chaos in economical, social, and political aspects.
So, the FBI is warning the Cybersecurity forces managing the agriculture industry to stay vigilant about the risks linked to ransomware attacks.
As planting and harvesting season is rampant across the states that generate green produce, cyber crooks might target cooperatives as they will be ready to pay a ransom in large amounts to keep their play active in agriculture productions.
In the year 2021, ransomware targeted cooperatives that manage the agricultural produce from farms to- table, affecting production to a negligible extent.
But this year, sophistication-driven hacking gangs such as BlackCat Ransomware group are on the prowl of weak targets and are seeming to make big money from the farming sector.
So, all the farms that produce greens and those in the meat industry are being urged to bolster their defensive line against the cyber threats currently lurking in the cyber landscape.
BlackCat ransomware aka ALPHV is a threat group that first steals data from the database and then encrypts it. It’s seen mostly targeting cloud databases and demands Bitcoins or Monero as ransom.
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