Cybersecurity: The Biggest Overlooked Threat to American Agriculture

On this episode of Casual Cattle Conversation, Shaye interviews Chris Sherman of Tech Support Farm about why farmers and ranchers are at risk for cybercrime and how to improve security. Sherman explains that cybercriminals target finance, information, and service disruption, and notes agriculture’s scale, liquidity, critical-infrastructure status, rapid tech adoption without “security by design,” a culture of trust, generational transition risks, and reliance on residential-grade hardware.   He cites examples, including a Minnesota cooperative ransomware attack during harvest and spoofed bank emails that led to lost money and a land deal, plus invoice fraud against ag businesses. Action steps include using a custom domain with commercial email and security tools, stronger 12+ character passwords and multifactor authentication, reviewing social media/device access, locking phones/computers, spotting phishing via headers, links, timestamps, and PDFs, segmenting farm Wi‑Fi, and using tools like antivirus, endpoint monitoring, and mobile device management. Wrapping up, Chris also recommends Tech Support Farm’s “Fence Check” assessment. Learn more about what Chris does at https://techsupport.farm/services/.    Links and Resources Learn more about Cargill here: https://bit.ly/4e1qygS Learn more about Corteva here: RangeAndPasture.com/CattleConversations Learn more about CattleScales Here: https://bit.ly/4dqqTtr Catch more conversations like this one and learn more at https://www.casualcattleconversations.com/    00:00 Cyber Risk Warning 01:34 Why Ag Is Targeted 04:08 Five Ag Cyber Gaps 08:41 Spyware Routers Cameras 09:55 Chris Background Mission 13:07 Email Domains Encryption 16:37 Real World Attack Stories 20:31 Action Steps Passwords MFA 27:52 Phishing Emails Links 30:05 Security Tools MDM WiFi 35:48 Fence Check Takeaway