Small Swiss Dairy Farmer Refuses to Pay Ransomware

A farmer from the Swiss canton of Zug became the target of a ransomware attack. The exact target of the attack was a milking robot. The robot, responsible for milking the animals, suddenly no longer received data. he milking robot records and stores all relevant data for each individual cow. The hackers, who remain unknown to this day, demanded 10,000 dollars (8,500 Swiss francs) from Bircher.

The machine also collected data about when individual cows had been inseminated. Since Bircher refused to pay the ransom, he was denied access to this data. Later, complications arose with one of the cows and she had to be put down.

Birchermade two serious mistakes: he had neither backups nor an emergency plan. At least the milking systems were not completely dependent on the computer, so the farmer was able to continue milking his cows.

Estimated Cost

The damage is estimated at 6,000 Swiss francs (around 6,400 euros)

Threat Source

Impacts

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