In this week's North American Ag Spotlight Chrissy Wozniak discusses cybersecurity risk and the food supply chain with Eracent founder Walt Szablowski.

Walt Szablowski is the Founder and Executive Chairman of Eracent and serves as Chair of Eracent’s subsidiaries (Eracent SP ZOO, Warsaw, Poland; Eracent Private LTD in Bangalore, India, and Eracent Brazil). 

Cyber attacks are becoming more common and the stakes are high! JBS USA confirmed it paid the equivalent of $11 million in ransom in response to the criminal hack against its operations. In consultation with internal IT professionals and third-party cybersecurity experts, the company made the decision to mitigate any unforeseen issues related to the attack and ensure no data was exfiltrated.

The FBI stated this is one of the most specialized and sophisticated cybercriminal groups in the world. The company spends more than $200 million annually on IT and employs more than 850 IT professionals globally.

In other industries the lack of a cyber security plan has big consequences, for the first time since 9/11, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), on January 11, 2023, had to issue a nationwide ground stop in the United States. In the outage that lasted 11 hours and 50 minutes, a total of 10,563 flights were delayed, while more than 1,300 flights were canceled, as reported by FlightAware. Although the FAA eventually confirmed that the outage was caused by a data file, related to the Notices to Air Missions (NOTAM) system, that was unintentionally damaged by a contractor who failed to follow procedures and was not caused by a cybersecurity breach, it raises plenty of questions and has understandably triggered panic across the nation. 

This incident raises questions about the security of a government agency’s software system – not only to implement measures to prevent human error but also to guard against cyberattacks. 
Szablowski recognizes the necessity of the right processes and the importance of discovering the data, defining the network, and putting them in the processes. “Eracent has all the systems one needs to effectively put these processes in place,” concludes Szablowski.

Eracent helps its customers meet the challenges of managing IT network assets, software licenses, and cybersecurity in today’s complex and evolving IT environments. Eracent’s enterprise clients save significantly on their annual software spend, reduce their audit and security risks, and establish more efficient asset management processes. Eracent’s client base includes some of the world’s largest corporate and government networks and IT environments — the USPS, VISA, US Airforce, British Ministry of Defense — and dozens of Fortune 500 companies rely on Eracent solutions to manage and protect their networks. 

Visit https://eracent.com/ 

#farm #agriculture #cybersecurity

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