Page 10 - National Poultry Newspaper

Cybercrims target Aussie agriculture
Resilient plants
entice hens on
free range farms
IN July 2020, Carolyn de Koning of the South Australian Research and Development In- stitute undertook a research project into the plants hens on free range farms prefer.
ennial grasses and per- ennial legumes were utilised.
The aim of the pro- ject was to consolidate available agronomic in- formation and provide an up-to-date resource for free range egg farm- ers on what and how to plant on the range.
This was most evident on the farms in the Aus- tralia temperate medi- terranean zone during summer.
To complete the pro- ject, Dr de Koning inte- grated existing research on the topic, as well as learnings from five ‘case study farms’ that she had worked with throughout the project.
Hens utilise the areas closest to the shed more often.
Plants, both ground cover and trees, grown on free range layer farms provide a vital role by enriching the outdoor range and cre- ating an attractive area for hens to go outdoors and explore.
Hens are less likely to venture to the outer range if temperatures are above 25C and it is windy.
However, specific in- formation on what to grow and how to go about sowing pastures and planting trees and shrubs is not easy to find for free range egg farmers, with material spread across many and varied sources.
As a result of hen ranging behaviour, bo- tanical composition of the ground cover spe- cies will change accord- ing to the distance from the shed, with more ac- tivity and hen numbers closest to the shed and less activity and hen numbers furthest from the shed.
Therefore, the main aim of the project was to consolidate agronom- ic information on the how and what to plant, while also taking into consideration the main climatic zones of Aus- tralia.
Weed species tend to be present closest to the shed.
The project had three components:
However, free range farms in drier climatic zones can benefit from growing shrubs such as oldman saltbush.
• Case study farms to see what plant species and how farms estab- lish and maintain veg- etation on the range
In the case study farms, tree and shrubs played a vital role on the range providing shade, shelter and dustbathing sites.
• Development of a guideline package on what and how to plant a range
All farms were ac- tively planting trees and shrubs with hardy local species used.
• The planting of perennials to enhance the outer range areas to increase utilisation by hens.
Furthermore, trees needed protection around the root zone from hen activity, espe- cially ranges stocked at 10,000 hens/ha.
Information generated from components one and three were incorpo- rated into the guideline package.
For the full report, visit australianeggs. org.au/assets/research/ documents/Resilient- plants-to-entice-hens- outdoors.pdf
Important findings
Perennial pasture plants are very impor- tant and in the case study farms both per-
When annual species had died off for the sea- son, perennials provided some green ground cov- erage.
It is difficult to achieve even usage by hens across the range.
Temperature and wind strength have a big im- pact on the hen’s will- ingness to go further out on the range.
Drier climates and drought conditions limit the opportunities for free range farms to re- sow ground cover on the range and to plant trees and shrubs.
Plants on free range layer farms enrich the out- door range and creating an attractive area for hens to go outdoors and explore.
RANSOMWARE, a type of malware, is an increasingly popu- lar type of extortionist cyberattack, which en- crypts data on infected computers or completely locks you out and holds your data or device hos- tage, with the attackers offering a decryption or return of access in ex- change for a ransom.
the remote desktop ac- cess from the internet and leave it accessible only within the internal net- work.
According to Avast, the number of ransom- ware attacks in Australia increased by 10 percent during the height of the pandemic in March and April 2020, compared to January and February 2020.
If the company does not need the remote desktop for its daily operations, it is better to turn it off completely.
Ransomware attacks in Australia have continued targeting the country’s industry, with $680,715 reported lost to Austral- ian Competition and Consumer Commission Scamwatch this year, not including companies who haven’t disclosed their ransomware payments.
This attack resulted in wool sales being halted for eight days and an esti- mated 70,000 bales being deferred for the sector that has sales of up to $80 mil- lion a week.
To defend yourself against the relentless crea- tion and assault of new ransomware strains, you should also make sure you keep your antivirus software up to date at all times.
Having backups of all your valuable and vi- tal files will help you in terms of damage control.
One of the more recent attacks was on the world’s largest meat processor JBS, which was attacked by ransomware in late May this year, resulting in 47 of their processing and packing plants ceas- ing operations.
Talman refused to pay the ransom, choosing to replace the software.
Though you may only ever hear of ransomware attacks on large business- es such as JBL and Tal- man in the media, small and medium agriculture businesses should still be very aware of ransomware and the potential vulner- abilities in their business infrastructure.
Think twice before clicking on links
Save your files to one or more physical devices – external hard drives, USB flash sticks, SD cards are options to consider along with cloud storage servic- es such as Dropbox, Box and Google Drive.
This had damning con- sequences to JBS in the US and Australia, where they supply an estimated 25-30 percent of the coun- try’s red meat, including to major supermarket chains Coles and Aldi.
In late June, Shadow Minister of Cyber Securi- ty Tim Watts tabled a new bill in Federal Parliament called the Ransomware Payments Bill, which proposes the creation of a ‘ransomware payment notification scheme’ that covers corporations and all federal government entities, as well as state and territory government agencies.
What to do for effective cybersecurity
Cyber-hijackers also dis- tribute their ransomware through mobile devices using text messaging and social media messenger apps.
This way, if you do get hit with a ransomware at- tack, you’re ready to re- store all your important files as soon as you re- move the ransomware from your device.
The meat processing gi- ant ended up paying a ran- som of over $14 million to regain access to their IT systems.
Even if you think you know the sender, take a closer look at both their address and the link itself before proceeding.
It is also crucial to man- age employees’ access rights and to implement the ‘zero trust’ principle – a security concept that requires all users, even those inside the organisa- tion’s enterprise network, to be authenticated, au- thorised and continuously validating security con- figurations before being granted or keeping access to applications and data – to reduce the impact of potential security vulner- abilities.
Another major ransom- ware attack in February
If anything looks ‘phishy’, steer clear.
2020, saw wool brokers across Australia and New Zealand severely disrupted when Talman software’s IT system, un- derpinning auctions and exports, was encrypted by cybercriminals.
It will require entities that make ransomware payments to notify the Australian Cyber Secu- rity Centre and allow the centralised collection of information and other ac- tionable intelligence by our law enforcement and signals intelligence agen- cies to combat ransom- ware attacks.
vices from remote desk- top vulnerabilities.
The absolute baseline prevention of company data loss due to a ransom- ware attack is regularly backing up.
These ransomware at- tacks on such important Australian agricultural sectors and supply chains show how vital it is for authorities to defend mar- kets against cyber threats.
Phishing scams are still the most popular way of distributing malware.
However, this won’t nec- essarily stop all ransom- ware attacks.
Most programs will au- tomatically do this for you, but for additional peace of mind, set aside a moment once a week to check for updates.
The best way to prevent data loss is to use a com- bination of offline and on- line storage methods.
In the case of a ransom- ware attack, businesses should definitely not con- sider paying the ransom or negotiating with the criminals behind the at- tack, as making the pay- ment doesn’t ensure you’ll get your files back or that you’ll get the right decryp- tion key, and your pay- ment will likely fund the development and launch of new ransomware.
Don’t click links you receive from unknown contacts via SMS, email or messenger applications such as Skype, WhatsApp or Messenger.
Ensure employees act securely and trust no one
The default ports – port 3389 for remote desktop – can be secured at the firewall level.
Back up all important files
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Businesses can of course look for decryption tools that several antivirus companies may have for the malware, and in some cases this works, but you shouldn’t rely on it.
Though common sense still works very well against phishing attacks, antivirus software can help detect infected sites and block malware, with these features getting bet- ter every year.
It is better to protect yourself against these at- tacks systemically, specif- ically by deploying strong security solutions that in- clude the latest malware protection features.
Update your operating system and your soft- ware
Remove access of ad- ministrative privileges for staff that don’t re- quire them and educate staff so they know how to browse securely, look- ing for the URLs padlock symbol and ‘https’ in the browser address bar, and they’re less likely to access malicious hy- perlinks, visit unknown websites and are able to recognise slight changes in URLs.
Here are a few ways businesses can prevent ransomware.
Keep your antivirus software up to date
As annoying as Win- dows, Apple and Android system update notices can be, you should never ig- nore them.
The best way to prevent ransomware attacks is to stop the malware from ac- cessing your computer or device.
Many of these updates involve security patches that are vital to prevent- ing ransomware and other malware from infiltrating your devices.
The first thing you should do is install an ef- fective top-quality antivi- rus program with a strong ransomware protection tool and RDP protection to address the growing risks posed by remote desktop use.
If you’re still using an older operating system that Microsoft no longer supports, such as Win- dows XP, you are espe- cially vulnerable to attack.
Encourage them to have strong passwords, ideally using different passwords for different website ac- counts, and add two-fac- tor authentication where possible, especially on administrator accounts.
Avast Business Anti- virus has remote access shield to protect your de-
You should also keep all your software up to date, particularly your web browsers and plug-ins. Fix your remote desktop access
Also, it is worth regu- larly getting your staff to check to make sure none of their passwords have been leaked or sto- len, which is easily done by using online tools pro- vided by security compa- nies, such as Avast’s free Hack Check tool.
Do yourself a massive favour and upgrade to a newer operating system.
It is essential to block
Page 10 – National Poultry Newspaper, August 2021
Jakub Kroustek Avast, Malware Re- search Director
www.poultrynews.com.au