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A bipartisan, bicameral bill introduced Thursday gives food and agriculture officials hope their industry can improve because of cyberattacks.
The Agricultural and Food Cybersecurity Act, led by Sens. Tom Cotton, R-Arkansas, and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N. Y. , would require the Secretary of Agriculture to conduct an investigation every two years into the state of cyber vulnerabilities and food. and agriculture, in addition to collaborating with key officials in the intelligence network to conduct trainings that simulate disruptive cyberattacks on the industry.
The U. S. Agency for International Development has stated in the past that cyberattacks on agricultural supply chains can threaten global food security, as the increasing digitalization of the industry allows hackers to alter agricultural equipment.
“Attacks on agriculture and precision farming devices can threaten yields and, if carried out on a large enough scale, can pose a serious threat of widespread starvation and economic damage at the local, regional, or even national level,” the USAID report says. launched in October.
The U. S. Department responded to a request for comment.
Like any major sector, food production and agriculture can face various cyberattacks, like social engineering or denial of services that overload web traffic of a site until it is brought down.
Ransomware is also critical to the industry, the researchers say. JBS USA, a meat-processing subsidiary of Brazil’s JBS SA, paid an $11 million ransom to hackers who disrupted the company’s ongoing operations in North America and Australia in 2021. Overall, Malwarethroughtes reported that cyberattacks on the food and agriculture sector increased by just over a little more than 600 percent in 2020.
Several industry groups have given their support to the bill, according to a release from Cotton’s office. Those include the American Farm Bureau Federation and Chamber of Commerce.
“As farmers and ranchers try to be more sustainable while feeding a developing population, they are bringing more generation into their operations and are more connected than ever. New technologies bring more dangers and we will have to remain vigilant in the face of bad actors who want to disrupt our food systems,” Emily Buckman, AFBF’s director of government affairs, said in a statement.
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