Grainswest - Winter 2022

Winter 2022 Grains West 22 ybersecurity breaches continue to plague major companies around the world, and for good reason: the nefarious “actors” behind the attacks stand to make substantial sums of money if they are able to pinch the right company at the right time in just the right place. It played out in May of 2021 when ransomware hackers hit the Colonial Pipeline on the American east coast. With fuel deliveries immediately halted, the company felt defeated enough to quickly pay 75 bitcoin with a value of $4.4 million USD to the cyber criminals, which many believe to be the Eastern European operatives known as DarkSide. Before the month was over, agriculture was the target. In a ransomware attack against JBS SA, the world’s largest cattle processor was brought to its knees almost overnight and operations were temporarily shuttered at its Canadian, U.S. and Australian facilities. Even though JBS spends in excess of $200 million annually on IT, its systems could not withstand the attack, which the FBI said was carried out by Russian- based REvil. The group demanded $22 million in bitcoin from the Brazilian mega company. In many instances, companies make a hard peace with the fact that the stolen information is simply gone and begin rebuilding, opting to never negotiate, but not JBS. Whatever information was compromised proved vital enough to come to the table. In an unprecedented move, JBS negotiated. After only a few C BY TREVOR BACQUE • ILLUSTRATIONS BY VECTEEZY.COM Cyberattacks a wakeup call for the agrifood industry FEATURE