Articles Tagged with ''cybersecurity''

Following an international wave of malicious cyberattacks on refrigeration systems, the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), FBI, USDA, and other agencies are advising crucial industries, including food and agriculture, to take certain actions to protect their operations.

Less than a month after a targeted refrigerator cyberattack hit hundreds of grocery stores in France, causing temperatures to be cranked up overnight, another similar incident has impacted additional food retailers across Europe.

The U.S. Pentagon is investigating whether a series of refrigerator malfunctions at military base commissaries could have been the result of targeted cyberattacks, similar to what occurred at hundreds of French grocery stores earlier in October.

Hundreds of grocery stores in France were targeted by a cyberattack in which hackers raised fridge temperatures to as high as 50 °C (122 °F), leading to mass food spoilage and several fires. Some retailers in several other European countries were also hit.

Food safety begins in the field, the barn, and the watershed, not at the processing plant. The concept of preharvest biosurveillance—the systematic, continuous monitoring and management of biological threats before harvest—is now central to building safer and more resilient food systems. 

AI-enhanced biosurveillance, integrated sensor networks, and intelligent analytics have been framed as critical enablers of safer, more efficient food systems. At the same time, the field has begun to acknowledge that the same tools that drive efficiency and predictive power can also be turned against the food system itself. 

This article examines the need to always engage subject matter experts in the analysis of AI results for food safety in the context of biosurveillance and cognitive security.

The free virtual event will take place on March 31 and will feature four European research and innovation initiatives to discuss how food security can be safeguarded by addressing fraud, crises, cyber threats, and chemical, biological and radiological (CBR) hazards across the food supply chain.

Most prominent among wartime threats for U.S. food, agriculture, and water systems is the probability of continuous and coordinated cyberattacks and other forms of sabotage.

This article discusses an Information Sharing and Analysis Center (ISAC) for biosurveillance, with the aim of ensuring food safety as part of a food defense program. ISACs collect, analyze, and disseminate actionable threat information to their industry members and provide members with tools to mitigate risks and enhance resiliency.