Major agriculture group New Cooperative hit by ransomware attack – 40% of grain supply chain under serious threat

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Major agriculture group New Cooperative hit by ransomware attack
Major agriculture group New Cooperative hit by ransomware attack. Picture via Twitter

Agriculture group New Cooperative group was hit by a ransomware attack over the weekend, potentially endangering operations of a company key to the agricultural supply chain.

A spokesperson for New Cooperative confirmed the attack on Monday, noting in a statement that the company “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,” the spokesperson said. “We also quickly notified law enforcement and are working closely with data security experts to investigate and remediate the situation.

Iowa-based New Cooperative is among the larger U.S. farm cooperatives, and received a ransom demand of $5.9 million from cybercriminal group BlackMatter.

Please know that NEW Cooperative is treating this matter with the utmost seriousness, and we are using every available tool and resource to quickly restore our systems. We appreciate the patience of our valued customers as we investigate this matter and work to restore functionality and will share additional information directly with our customers as we learn it.”

In what are thought to be screenshots of a negotiation between a spokesperson for New Cooperative and the hackers tweeted out by security researchers, New Cooperative noted that 40 percent of the nation’s grain production runs through its software, and that the ransomware attack would “break the supply chain very shortly” if the hackers did not relent.

A spokesperson for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the key federal agency tasked with securing critical U.S. infrastructure, declined to comment in favor of comments from New Cooperative.

Allan Liska, a senior intelligence analyst at cybersecurity group Recorded Future, was among security professionals tracking the ransomware attack Monday, telling that it was still unclear how far-reaching the attack might be.

New Coop is the 51st largest farm cooperative in the US, so there may be regional disruptions in the food deliveries and the ransomware attack appears to have taken New Coop’s Soil Map offline,” Liska told The Hill.

What is interesting here is the invocation of CISA by New Coop in the released chats,” Liska said, pointing to messages to the hackers from New Cooperative threatening to involve the agency. “We know that the threat actor behind BlackMatter is a sniveling little coward who ran and hid after the Colonial Pipeline attack, the New Coop is likely invoking CISA for the same reason, we’ll see if it has the same impact.

The attack comes in the wake of more than a year of escalating cyberattacks during the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, in particular ransomware attacks targeting groups critical to key U.S. supply chains.

These incidents have included ransomware attacks in May on Colonial Pipeline, which provides 45 percent of the East Coast’s fuel, and on JBS USA, one of the largest meat providers. A ransomware attack on IT company Kaseya in July impacted up to 1,500 groups, while ransomware attacks on hospitals and schools during the COVID-19 pandemic have been an increasing concern.

Both Colonial Pipeline and JBS USA chose to pay the ransom payments demanded, while Kaseya chose not to and obtained a decryption key from an undisclosed third party, with all three attacks linked to Russian-based cyber criminal groups. The Justice Department was able to recover the majority of the $4.4 million in bitcoin paid to hackers by Colonial. [The Hill]

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7 Comments

  1. Clearly these are trial runs for something larger. Meat packers, the pipeline… now grain. We have shortages all over the place. On purpose closing of ports. Next add in the fact they keep talking about a cyberattack distrusting the global supply chain. Plus they’ve simulated it.

    Something big is right around the corner folks. Tie it all together.

    • They may need to stop the flow of information. Lefties are jumping ship. They control the backbone of the internet. What could go wrong?

  2. Use of Microsoft Junk is not advised. Use of Linux is best of best.. Islam that takes the eyes of its citizens out and stone death its citizens and hang its citizens also Islam does not give you a lawyer to defend yourself. This is Islam and his religion. We must come out of this cult ASAP. Islam is religion of peace?

    • There’s bad apples in All religions now. They have been infiltrated by luciferians. That’s why you can’t say one group is All bad. Some people have been tricked into following false prophets in all religions. Also perverts have infiltrated and make problems.
      That is a goal of bad people. To ruin religions. They want you to worship The State. Same as communist buttclowns.

  3. Well, its either a legitimate attack, or one perpetrated by the satanic elitists. Hard to tell with all the spy vs spy shenanigans.

    You can grow plenty of foods, and raise rabbit, chicken, duck type (eggs and meat) food. It’s not as easy in a city with one tenth acre plots. However, west facing windowsills are excellent grow areas for peppers.

    I eat a ton of peppers, and they are good for digestion and roughage. Keep 100 lbs. of beans and rice handy. It’s comparatively inexpensive, and if you loath dehydrated foods, well then, you will be satisfied when hungry.
    Cases of peanut butter and honey are good with oats. Rolled oats are best, but regular are ok too. Frozen peas make good food, and cold packs on bruises.
    Dogs can eat oats and rice as far as feeding pets goes. Birds can free range outside if you have land.

    • I grow pears, apples, berries, apricot, and cherry. It’s not easy. I am retired, so I can till the soil. It’s good exercise planting trees too. Stay healthy and away from medical treatment. I don’t take any prescribed medication at all. Zero.

      Don’t eat fast food or restaurant food. You don’t know what is in it, who touches it, and based upon how fat people have become since the advent of fast foods, it’s probably bad.

      Remember, excess carbs convert to sugars, and make people store fat. Not good, and lethargy sets in after too many carbs at a sitiing. Divide portions in half, cut most dairy out if you can, or be moderate. Parmesan Cheese is my weakness. Lol

      Eat, exercise, rest, and if you use supplements make sure they are from reputable sources. I know Mike Adams and Alex Jones sell those items. I haven’t tried them, but if they were not good, then people wouldn’t keep buying them.

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