Chad Hart, professor, was interviewed for a Sept. 21 Washington Post story, "Russian hackers target Iowa grain co-op in $5.9 million ransomware attack."
Agriculture industry experts are less alarmed about the effects of this one attack than they are of the long-term ramifications.
“I think we’ll see some small ripples,” Chad Hart, an Iowa State University agricultural economist, said about the hack, “but not necessarily because New Cooperative is so large. It’s because the whole grain-handling system is wondering if that will happen to them. Who will be the next to be hit?”
Hart said New Cooperative’s grinding to a halt will be big for Central Iowa but relatively small in terms of grain flow nationwide.
“The greater challenge is, it gums things up right as crop harvest is beginning here in Iowa,” he said. “That’s going to be the challenge, that one of the sizable co-ops is wrestling with the supply chain at the beginning of the busiest time of year.”
This story also covered by The Ames Tribune, Sept. 21