Grainswest - Winter 2022

Winter 2022 Grains West 24 Even though Young does not view farms as a primary target of hackers, it does not mean they are off the hook. “If you only think they’re looking for data other than disruption to your system and shutting down your entire business, then you will miss the holes in your systems,” she cautioned. “They do a lot of homework. These guys are really smart. They understand who your supply chain is; we’re all in business, we’re all connected.” With so much agricultural field data being sent into the cloud, concerns linger about where the information is stored and how secure its servers are. Young said farmers have a right to be concerned. “When you are working with these third parties … talk to them about cybersecurity,” she said. “Lots of organizations won’t include that in their base product. It’s great that [agricultural machines] are connected to the internet, that a third party can secure and monitor it, but what’s their security?” DON’T USE “bob2020” “Is any system perfect? I haven’t seen an industry where it’s not a problem.” So said Cameron Bergen, CEO and co-founder of Mode40, a Steinbach, MB agrifood and IoT solutions provider with a focus on cybersecurity. Digital susceptibility is an issue for all businesses he said, and this includes agriculture and its peripheral industries. “Vulnerabilities exist in everything from financial institutions through health care and inside the food space. Our simple take is organizations have to pay attention … doing regular assessments with the right certifications and assume failure is going to happen.” While combat against cybersecurity threats is carried out by IT teams that administer complex systems, common- sense precautions such as passwords are just as important. “Don’t use ‘bob2020,’” he explained. Email filtering systems are essential for any business owner, whether a sole- proprietor farmer or a value-added farm operation and Berger said businesses deal with the issue of cyber crime non- stop. “It still occurs more frequently than you want to know.” While farmers may be hesitant to send agronomic data to the cloud, Bergen believes skepticism was warranted 10 years ago, but not today. “We see an increase in confidence with the level of [security] cloud service providers have brought [to] their infrastructure,” he said. “That infrastructure has matured. It’s proven itself in other industries. I don’t see the same reluctance anymore.” Aside from internal checks and balances, Bergen suggested anyone with a business of any size is wise to solicit outside perspectives. “You have to have external, unbiased views that can deliver to you and challenge you about best practices,” he said. “It’s where we can find some of our biggest weaknesses. We can talk about advanced methodologies all day long, but until you check the box on the basics, it’s rare we don’t find a scenario to fix your internal assessments and checks even on the most basic levels. Fix low-hanging fruit now.” Farm size is not a factor in this equation because hacking can occur for any reason to any person. Farms need to be vigilant since their livelihood is, to varying degrees, tied into the data they collect. “If your facilities that have animals in them, or plants, that rely on that infrastructure to grow, you should be asking yourself this question: What are you doing today? It could be a one-family farm, one building. The answer should be: I have a plan, I know what I’m doing.” CANADIAN CENTRE FOR CYBERSECURITY Is your farm or additional business venture secure? How do you know?Well, one way is to get in touch with the Canadian Centre for Cybersecurity (Cyber Centre). Based in Ottawa, ON, the high-tech bureaucratic wing of the federal government provides loads of free information on how the average business may implement practices and procedures to stay safe in a connected world. Whether a farmplans to move its business operations to the cloud or wishes to conduct an internal cybersecurity audit, the Cyber Centre is a trusted resource. According to the Canadian Centre for Cybersecurity, cyber crime remains the top threat most likely to affect Canadians and their businesses, specifically those in the small- and medium-sized categories. FEATURE