Why Information Sharing Is Critical for Food and Agriculture Companies to Combat Cyberattacks

MICHAEL COSTA | SENIOR EDITOR

THE FOOD AND AGRICULTURE INDUSTRY hasn’t traditionally been mentioned as a cybersecurity target like the banking and healthcare industries, which have been (and continue to be) hit hard by ransomware and other threats, resulting in millions of dollars lost, and in some cases the closure of facilities due to the fi nancial impact of those incidents.

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The recently launched Food and Ag-ISAC aims to collectively mitigate cyberattacks on the industry, with help from companies like Bunge, Cargill, Conagra, Corteva, PepsiCo, and Tyson.

But recent attacks to brands like JBS, Schreiber Foods, Sysco, Dole, and others, have prompted an updated version of the food and agriculture information sharing and analysis center (Food and Ag-ISAC), which originally existed from 2002 to 2008 but was discontinued due in part to a lack of interest by companies to participate and share information with each other.

More than a decade later, it’s clear the food and agriculture industry is in the crosshairs of cybercriminals, so the 2023 version of the Food and Ag-ISAC—which launched in May—operates as its own entity and not a subgroup, and has the initial backing of food giants Bunge, Cargill, Conagra, Corteva, PepsiCo, and Tyson.

“The industry thrives when there is a healthy value chain,” says Paul Hershberger, cyber command center leader at Cargill. “The threats we face are most often common across the industry and the ability to manage

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those threats is realized through openly sharing threat intelligence. The more we as an industry can share information about threats and potential attacker tactics, techniques, and procedures, the more effective we can be in preparing to mitigate those threats and supporting a resilient food and agriculture value chain.”

The threat landscape is more complex than ever, according to Steve Stellmacher, global director, cyber threat defense operations at Bunge. “There is a direct correlation between the increase in the use of technology and the level of exposure that the technology alters to an organization’s threat surface,” he says. “We can all observe the increase in cyber-based attacks. What was a weekly news item just a year ago is now more frequent and disrupts the business processes, the supply chain, or customers directly. While [members] may be competitors within the industry, we also have a common vested interest to be active stewards and work to preserve, share information, and protect our market space as a whole.” designated ISAC for the food and agriculture industry. Over the last 18 months, there’s been increased recognition by the food and agriculture sector that they were one of the few without a designated ISAC. Within member companies and the community, we have seen renewed interest, so we figured this was a good time to launch a Food and Ag-ISAC and grow it with a focus on sustained success this time.

Those at the Food and Ag-ISAC say the organization provides curated threat intelligence so companies can identify attacks, incidents, and threat indicators, enabling them to share and deploy effective mitigations to protect their companies and the entire food and agriculture sector. The Food and Ag-ISAC is the only information-sharing group dedicated to serving the food and agriculture industry, where connectivity and technology are increasingly integrated into that sector.

We sat down with Scott Algeier, executive director of IT-ISAC, to find out why the Food and Ag-ISAC was resurrected and given a prominent place under the IT-ISAC umbrella in 2023, and what has changed in food and agriculture cybersecurity since 2008.

Today’s Food and Ag-ISAC is starting with sensibilities already in place from our previous version. We have a strong core of member companies who are significant industry players and are adopting it, and they’ve already been engaging with each other for over a decade. Some of those growing pains the first ISAC had, like trying to build trust with members and trying to build capabilities to help them, I think we’ve overcome those. Today, we already have capabilities, we already have trust, and we already have analysis. We’re not starting from scratch, we’re building off of a solid foundation.

PFW: Let’s say one of today’s member companies experiences a cyberattack. How does the Food and Ag-ISAC become involved?

ALGEIER: The model that we have is food companies will be the primary responders to the incidents. They’re the ones who are responsible for identifying the incident and managing containment during the incident response, but [with Food and Ag-ISAC] they have a community of analysts within the industry that help them. They have various methods through setting up meetings, secure checks, email listservs, regularly scheduled meetings, contacting the operations team, and contacting companies individually that they’ve been working with through the ISAC. They can communicate with each other: “We’re seeing this. We’re not sure what it is. Is this familiar to you? Have you seen this before?”

PROFOOD WORLD: Why is the time right to bring back the Food and Ag-ISAC?

ALGEIER: Having a special interest subgroup within the IT-ISAC isn’t the same as having a

We also have adversary attack playbooks on multiple threat actors they can consult, and we have ransomware trackers they can view. If a company is victimized from a ransomware campaign, we have a tracker that can help them identify indicators within our intelligence management platform that correlates to other incidents. We also think that by sharing this information ahead of incidents that it increases the chance companies will be able to manage these risks. And if they do become a victim, they’ll be able to recover more quickly because of the total capabilities we offer them.