NEW Cooperative, an Iowa-based agricultural services provider, has sounded the alarm about the impact of the latest ransomware attack it suffered stating that the attack could significantly affect public supplies of grain, pork and chicken if its systems are not restored online.
According to the farming organization, its software controls about 40% of the grain production and feed schedule 11 million farm animals in the United States, and as such, federal government regulators like CISA will soon step in if the systems are not restored online.
The ransomware group BlackMatter attacked NEW Cooperative servers and demanded the sum of $5.9 million to provide a decryptor.
Although NEW Cooperative said it has notified law enforcement and is now deploying data security experts to resolve the issue, a company’s spokesperson explained that systems were shut down to contain the attack, preventing the company from performing its duties.
The spokesperson explained to Bleeping Computer, “NEW Cooperative recently identified a cybersecurity incident that is impacting some of our company’s devices and systems. Out of an abundance of caution, we have proactively taken our systems offline to contain the threat, and we can confirm it has been successfully contained.”
For more information, read the original story in Ars Technica.