"Sustainable But Smartly: Tackling Security And Privacy Issues In Smart Agriculture"
A team of researchers from China, Algeria, and the UK conducted a comprehensive analysis of security and privacy risks associated with current technologies used in smart agriculture. The researchers also identified and proposed potential countermeasures. Smart agriculture supports agricultural intelligence and automation, with the development goal being to carry out both intellectual and unmanned operations. However, the field of smart agriculture faces risks of information theft and cyberattacks. The countermeasures proposed by the researchers to address these risks are based on the context or mode of agricultural production. They classified the agriculture system into three modes: precision agriculture, facility agriculture, and order agriculture. Each mode has its own unique features, such as scale, climate, infrastructure, equipment, and technology, that leaves it vulnerable to different types of risks. According to the researchers, the different types of risks associated with each mode requires distinct countermeasures. Internet of Things (IoT) devices are essential components in every mode, but are used differently based on what tasks must be performed. For example, in field agriculture, IoT devices are used to record environmental variables and analyze trends for the optimization of fertilizer input. The different ways in which the technological architecture is set up introduce various types of security challenges. For instance, extreme environmental conditions can physically damage sensing equipment outside, while cyberattacks can lead to the unauthorized modification of automated equipment. The researchers classified the challenges they identified as agricultural production-related or information technology-related to assess the solutions required in each case. This article continues to discuss the concept of smart agriculture, the security and privacy risks facing this field, findings from the study on security challenges involved in the different modes of the agricultural system, and proposed countermeasures.