Global food supply chains are increasingly vulnerable to cyber attacks that could pose a risk to public health, a new report has warned.
Contaminated food, physical harm to workers, destroyed equipment, environmental damage and huge financial losses for food companies are among the potential consequences outlined in the study by the Food Protection and Defense Institute at the University of Minnesota.
Experts warn that the Industrial Control Systems (ICSs) that firms use to process and manufacture food have many vulnerabilities that are easy to exploit and will become an increasingly attractive target for criminals.
“As the energy, financial, and healthcare sectors harden their defenses in response to attacks, it’s safe to assume criminals and other threat actors will move on to lower hanging fruit,” the report reads.
“This could well be the food industry, which continues to use vulnerable ICSs [that are discoverable on the internet.”
The study adds that operations technology (OT) staff in the food industry tend to be experts in food safety and production, but not in cybersecurity, which overwhelms most of them. “OT personnel aren’t trained to develop a mindset to…
