23 September 2021

Another U.S. farm coop falls victim to ransomware


Another U.S. farm coop falls victim to ransomware

Crystal Valley, a Minnesota-based farm supply and grain marketing cooperative, has become the latest U.S. agriculture business hit with a ransomware attack.

The company released a statement about the cyberattack on its website on Tuesday, but the site is currently unavailable, as of Thursday. Crystal Valley has confirmed the cyberattack in a Facebook post by saying the following:

“Crystal Valley has been targeted in a ransomware attack. The attack has infected our the computer systems and interrupted the daily operations of our company.”

“Note: due to this, we are unable to accept Visa, Mastercard, and Discover cards at our cardtrols until further notice. Local cards do work,” the company added.

"Crystal Valley and cyber security experts are working diligently to re-establish safe and secure operating systems, which will be back online when we are confident the issue has been resolved."

At the time of writing, there is no information on which ransomware strain infected the Crystal Valley’s network, or what ransom the hackers have demanded.

This incident marks the second ransomware attack in the last week targeting an agriculture cooperative. Over the weekend, the Iowa-based farmer's feed and grain cooperative New Cooperative group was targeted by a BlackMatter ransomware attack, with the attackers demanding a $5.9 million ransom, which will increase to $11.8 million if a ransom is not paid until September 25.


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