"FBI Warns US Farmers of Ransomware Surge"

The FBI is warning that US food supply chains are at risk of potentially devastating ransomware attacks.  A new Private Industry Notification sent out this week claimed that agricultural cooperatives may be viewed as attractive targets during the planting and harvesting seasons.  The FBI stated that the attacks could cause financial loss and operational disruption and impact the food supply chain, given that grain is also used for animal feed.  Compromises at dairy or meat processing facilities can lead to delays which result in spoiled products, the notice explained.  The FBI stated that threat actors might perceive cooperatives as lucrative targets with a willingness to pay due to the time-sensitive role they play in agricultural production.  The notice listed multiple examples of unnamed agricultural sector firms that have been compromised by ransomware since last year.  These include a supply chain attack in which a software company was attacked in July 2021, impacting downstream agricultural clients.  The FBI stated that initial intrusion vectors included known but unpatched common vulnerabilities and secondary infections from the exploitation of shared network resources or compromise of managed services.  Production was impacted for some of the targeted entities, resulting in slower processing due to manual operations, while other targeted entities lost access to administrative functions such as websites and email but did not have production impacted.  The FBI also listed multiple best practice recommendations in the notice, including regular patching, multi-factor authentication, disabling RDP ports, and improving employee cybersecurity awareness.

Infosecurity reports: "FBI Warns US Farmers of Ransomware Surge"