Cyber Security on the Farm

The amount of information farmers move around the internet has more than tripled. Jeremy Hoffmann, Chair of the Cyber Security Program at Des Moines Area Community College says the need for protecting our information needs to be a bigger priority than it is. "it's an exciting time in tech in agribusiness but from a cyber security point of view it is also a very scary time because more and more equipment is connected to the Internet. The amount of data in the last five years has more than tripled and where it is stored in the Cloud on all of the peoples devices, having access to data is king. Securing that data has really taken a backside to convenience and as we have learned from certain breaches like Target, Equifax, your data is really important to people out there that want to either make money off of you or blackmail you as we have seen with hospitals, police departments, Government agencies, they lock you out of your entire business and demand Ransom."

 

One area Hoffmann says is especially vulnerable is when farmers aren't careful where their updates come from or try to get around proprietary software to cut cost