On Sept. 3, the FBI warned food and agriculture producers that they could be targeted by cybercriminals. However, Russian hackers launched a ransomware attack on an Iowa grain co-op and demanded $5.9 million to unlock the company’s computer networks.
Cybersecurity experts who evaluated the attack stated that the hacking group, BlackMatter, threatened to publish a terabyte of the cooperative’s data if they did not receive the ransom payment in cryptocurrency by Sept. 25. For example, invoices, research and development documents, and the source code to its soil-mapping technology.
Out of an abundance of caution, the co-op has proactively taken its systems offline to contain the threat. Which has successfully contained the threat.