Farmers’ Guide to Cybersecurity
This project is founded on a key question posed by our Cyber expert, Dr Arash Mahboubi who inspired the whole study. He asked us;
Just imagine, what would our country be like, if we didn’t have farmers?
We know we all depend on a strong agricultural sector for food as well as so many other kinds of products . If farmers do not know how to secure their digital networks, then their farming business may not be safe from cyber-attacks, and that can affect everyone.
We know that many farmers have adopted a range of networked agri-tech products as part of their business. We also know that all networked technology systems can be vulnerable to cyber-attacks and result in cyber-security failure, which could be really expensive and damaging for farmers.
Moreover, if a cyber-attack happens to farmers, suppliers, service providers and consumers may all be impacted.
These thoughts all lead to the driving challenge for our research team;
Can we increase farmers’ awareness of cyber issues, persuade them that they are vulnerable to cyber-threats like any business, and help them to adopt solutions that will keep their business cyber-safe?
The project has three distinct research teams, who have been working collaboratively to understand farmers’ needs, and develop cyber solutions that can help farmers shut the gate on cyber intruders.
This project started with getting to know farmers, and their needs.
First, from our qualitative study, we found that many farmers may not be aware of or fully understand the nature of cyber-threats.
Second, cyber-threats, like ransomware, data breaches and network hacking, are intangible and feel like things that aren’t likely to happen on a farm.
Finally, with all their competing priorities, many farmers put the problem of managing cyber issues in the “not today, or this is too hard at the moment” box.
Thus, one key aim for this project is to find a way to show that cyber-threats are real and translate technical cyber-security solutions into something farmers’ can easily understand and include into their normal business activities.
We asked some farmers and people in the agricultural value chain about their thoughts on cyber-threats, and what they would want to know about cyber-attacks on their farming enterprise. Here’s what some of them had to say.
If Mick and Andrew’s stories sound familiar, know that you are not alone, and there are things you can do.
Let’s start with basics, so you can see what you already know, and what things you might need to learn.