Even small farmers are not immune to cyberattacks. Vital Bircher, a farmer in Hagendorn, Switzerland, between Zurich and Lucerne, recently experienced an attack on his computer systems, which were also connected the dairy farmer’s milking robots, the Luzerner Zeitung first reported. Ultimately, one of Bircher’s cows died as a result of the attack.
Bircher initially suspected an outage because he was no longer receiving milking data for his cows. The farmer was then alerted by the his milking system manufacturer that he had been hacked. The attack included a ransomware component that locked up Bircher’s data, with the attackers demanding $10,000 to decrypt it.
Missing vital data, rescue attempt comes too late
Bircher initially considered whether he should agree to the attacker’s ransomware demands. Not receiving data on the amount of milk produced was not an emergency situation for the farmer, whose dairy farm sits on the northern edge of Lake Zug. In addition, the milking robots can also operate without a computer or network connection in the event of an outage so that the animals can continue to be milked.
However, Bircher also receives vital data from his animals via the system. This is particularly critical when cows are pregnant.
One of Bircher’s animals had a calf that had died in the womb. Bircher was unable to recognize the emergency in time because of the disabling of his computer. “We tried everything to save the mother, but in the end we had to put her down,” the farmer told the Swiss media.
Overall, the Swiss farmer estimates the damage caused by the cyber incident at around 6,000 Swiss francs — primarily veterinary costs and the purchase of a new computer. The hackers, however, came away empty-handed.