Old MacDonald Had a Breach: Cyber Risks on the Connected Farm
Farms aren’t just dirt and diesel anymore—they’re IoT networks with tractors. Smart irrigation, GPS, livestock HVAC, and connected sensors run smart farms. The attack surface has moved to the back field. This talk dives into how cyber attacks could hit smart farming: spoofed GPS sending tractors sideways, irrigation systems flooding fields, and barn HVAC cooking chickens. Funny? Maybe. Realistic? Absolutely. Because if you can root a router, you can probably root a root crop.
Modern farms are basically OT environments wearing cowboy boots. They run on connected devices, automation, remote access, and aging infrastructure—often with thin budgets and even thinner security. This session looks at how attackers could exploit smart farming systems using the same tactics they use everywhere else: default creds, exposed devices, bad segmentation, weak vendors, and trusting bad data. This is a fun, practical talk for cyber folks who know both packet captures and pickup trucks. Attendees leave with a fresh threat model, practical defenses, and a reminder that critical infrastructure sometimes wears overalls.
Dr. J is a cybersecurity leader with extensive experience protecting critical infrastructure across complex enterprise environments. She specializes in purple teaming and integrating intelligence into operational environments, ensuring that insights don’t remain theoretical but translate into decisive, actionable impact. Her approach emphasizes precision, lethality in execution, and effectiveness in environments where speed and accuracy matter. Beyond operations, Dr. J is deeply committed to developing people. She is passionate about mentoring and growing the next generation of cyber warriors, helping others build both technical depth and operational confidence. Her leadership style centers on empowerment, collaboration, and raising the overall capability of the teams and communities she serves.