Smart farming is a real thing, it enables farmers to monitor their crops and gather visual analytics on big data. This allows for farmers to anticipate crop availability and forecast pricing.
This data is very valuable to the farmers and costly to produce. This isn’t confidential type of data and the average farmer doesn’t treat it as such, therefore they don’t put much protection surrounding the data or the environment hosting it. Without protection, it’s susceptible to theft.
In addition to theft, farm-level data may also be vulnerable to ransomware and data destruction. Ransomware has become a significant threat to US businesses and individuals. Perpetrators use ransomware to encrypt a user’s important files, rendering them unreadable until a ransom is paid. Hacktivists may also destroy data to protest, for example, the use of genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) or pesticides. The single most important protection measure against these threats is to implement a robust data back-up and recovery plan. Back-ups should be maintained in a separate and secure location so that malicious actors cannot readily access them from local networks.
Here is the official public notice from the FBI.
