Homeland Security
Food Chain Radio Show #1154
Michael Olson, Author & Urban Farming Agriculturalist
Homeland Security – The Russians are Coming!
And so are the Chinese, Iranians, North Koreans & maybe even Icelanders!
Guest: Bob Norton, PhD, Director of Auburn University’s Open Source Intelligence Lab, Faculty Liaison at Auburn’s Cyber Initiative, and Chair of Auburn’s Food System Institute’s Food and Water Defense Working Group
Can hackers shut down our industrial food chain?
It used to be you could protect your watermelon patch by sitting at the gate with a double-barreled shotgun in hand.
Michael Olson Food Chain Radio – Homeland Security – The Russians are Hacking Our Food Chain
Melon thieves would see that shotgun at the ready and just keep moving on down the road.
Today your melon patch might well be over a thousand acres, and its irrigation system is likely managed via computer from your office in a large complex in town.
There are those out there who take great joy, and profit, by hacking into your computerized irrigation system, where they wander around the digital corridors collecting information, like your passwords, and find connections to other computerized systems, like your bank accounts. And they are happy to hang around, where they can wait your every move, and you don’t even know they are there.
America’s food and agriculture sector is one of the 16 critical infrastructures identified by the Department of Homeland Security as being threatened by digital hackers.
These digital hackers are foreign governments, like Russia, China, Iran, North Korea or, who knows, maybe even Iceland! Or they are criminal gangs associated with a foreign government.
We are told the most likely scenario would be for a malicious software bug to destroy industrial control systems, which would cause food production to come to a screeching halt.
The prospect of having some bad actor flip a digital switch and turn off our ability to eat leads us to ask:
Leave a comment below: Can hackers shut down our industrial food chain?
Nationally syndicated Food Chain Radio airs live Saturday mornings 9-10AM Pacific.
