Food Security as a Geopolitical Weapon

 

"They've just become so common. Every week, I would say, we are getting contacted by farmers or food companies. It's one of the soft bellies of our critical infrastructure."

"I think we are all waiting for disaster."

Ali Dahghantanha, Cyber Science Lab, University of Guelph, Ontario

"These are all systems that we explicitly depend on every single day, and they have become extremely vulnerable to manipulation of all sorts."

"They're vulnerable because we haven't thought carefully about the security of how we set these systems up."

"I mean, it's truly terrifying, to be honest."

Even Fraser, director, Arrell Food Institute, University of Guelph

"The interruption of the global food supply is not collateral damage from the war in Ukraine."

"It is a planned hybrid weapon to further massively destabilize the global economy and political order."

Yulia Klymenko, Ukrainian MP, first deputy chair, Transport and Infrastructure Committee, Ukraine

"There is a lot of innovation happening in agriculture in Canada."

"So we are at risk from foreign-backed espionage."

Mohamad Yaghi, Agriculture and Climate policy lead, Royal Bank of Canada

Hackers could be waiting to cause disruption, or simply just monitoring and collecting data on foreign agricultural methods. Photo by Chung Sun-Jun/Getty Images

 

Last year Ali Dehghantanha's squad of engineers and computer scientists responded to dozens of reports from southwestern Ontario of hacks within farming and food production operations. Sometimes the incidents represent a bad link in an email with hackers demanding money to unlock a system or to return the farmer's data. In other instances hackers break into a farm system and threaten to kill livestock; chickens, cattle. 

In a third of the cases, investigators found evidence of state-sponsored hackers originating in
Russia, China, North Korea and Iran who have quietly gained access to control systems inside a farming operation. The University of Guelph is located close to Toronto in one of the province's most vital farming hubs. A group of specialists work out of the Cyber Science Lab, visiting banks, defence contractors, hospitals and farms. The lab received fifty calls from the food industry last year.

The realization dawned that the domestic food production system may be one of the most obvious cracks in Canada's national defences. Criminals or state-sponsored hackers breaking into systems to disrupt critical infrastructure like transportation or health care or food production only recently become plausible owing in part to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

 

 Canada's Communications Security Establishment (CSE) the country's signals intelligence agency, warned that Russian-backed hackers are "exploring options for potential counterattacks" on critical infrastructure in Canada and other NATO allies supporting Ukraine.

 

A computer monitor is seen inside a GPS-equipped John Deere tractor. As farm use of technology and smart devices grows, experts say more needs to be done to protect against cyberattacks that could threaten food security. (Seth Perlman/The Associated Press)

 

Farms have become complex technical operations using networks of remote monitors measuring soil moisture, or robotic milkers capable of detecting an infection in a single teat, or environmental control systems maintaining the precise indoor temperature and air filtration requirements of a poultry barn. All of which in theory could be commandeered and held for ransom by a hacker. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security identified several "hypothetical threat scenarios" in its 2018 report where hackers could compromise agricultural operations. 

 

One scenario had a terrorist lift data on the health of a large livestock herd. "They modify the data to look like the herds have foot and mouth disease, and dump the data on the internet". In such an instance it could take weeks for lab tests to confirm the outbreak was in fact false -- in the interim causing trade issues and shaking public trust in the food supply. Another scenario had hackers manipulate moisture sensors in a farmer's soil, triggering watering systems to flood the fields and destroy crops.

 

In its invasion of Ukraine an effective part of the Russian playbook has been attacking agricultural infrastructure. EU trade counsellor Maud Labat warned that Moscow strategized how to wield food as a "geopolitical weapon". Its attacks on transportation and grain storage infrastructure, its months-long blockade of ports on the Black Sea choked off access to one of the world's most important bread baskets, driving up global grain prices last spring. Food shortage concerns intensified in developing nations depending on the region for imports. 

 

National Cyber Threat Assessment's latest report stated state-sponsored hackers are not likely to disrupt or destroy critical infrastructure unless Canada enters into direct hostilioties, leaving  hackers more likely to break into Canadian systems to collect information or "pre-position" in the event of a future conflict. Released last fall, the CSE report stated adversaries could use cyberattacks as a form of "power projection and intimidation".

 

 

"In the absence of a significant escalation in international hostilities, we assess it is unlikely that state-sponsored actors will intentionally seek to disrupt Canadian critical infrastructure and cause major damage or loss of life", advised CSE spokesperson Kyla Borden. "This is organized crime. These folks have HR departments. They have employees of the month awards. This is big business", explained John Hewie, a national security officer at Microsoft Inc., referring to sophisticated networks focusing on "big-game hunting" -- attacks where a hacker takes control of a system or data from a major business and asks for a steep ransom.

 

In fact, the Canadian food industry alone experienced a series of high-profile incidents late last year, a "cybersecurity incident" at Maple Leaf Foods Inc., one of Canada's largest meat packers. Empire Co.Ltd., Canada's second-largest grocery chain experienced a "cybersecurity intrusion" that snarled operations, expected to cost the company $25 million. According to Janos Botschner, lead investigator of the Cyber Security Capacity in Canadian Agriculture, approximately four to 11 percent of Canada's farms have had a cyberattack attempt on their operations. "This is very much an estimate, but it's probably also an under-report", he clarified. 

A farmer in a chicken barn in Ontario. Photo by Peter J. Thompson/National Post files

The Martyr's Revenge

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi delivers a speech during a ceremony in the capital Tehran, on January 3, 2022, commemorating the second anniversary of the US drone strike in Iraq that killed Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis. (Atta Kenare/AFP)

"If Trump and [former Secretary of State Mike] Pompeo are not tried in a fair court for the criminal act of assassinating General Soleimani, Muslims will take our martyr's revenge."

"The aggressor, murderer and main culprit -- the then-president of the United States -- must be tried and judged under the [Islamic] law of retribution, and God's ruling must be carried out against him."

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi

 

 Revolutionary Guard General Qassem Soleimani AP

The death of General Qassem Soleimani by missile strike in 2020 relieved the world of yet another psychopathic monster entitled to slaughter those whom the Islamic Republic of Iran viewed as an enemy of its theocratic rule and its plans to subject the Middle East, its Arab Muslim Sunni majority countries to the inevitable conquest that the Shiite Persian state was carefully crafting in its annexation of Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen as independent countries becoming vassals of Iran, under the stewardship of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

 

As head of the al-Quds branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, Soleimani was the influential mastermind of all the activities of  his segment of the corps assigned to perform the training and supply of weaponry for terrorist groups loyal to Iran, including Islamic Jihad, Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis, as well as tribal Shiite militias under Iran's thumb. Their commander's death was a tragedy for their cohesive purpose in spreading violence and terror in the region and abroad, but a relief for those countries and governments his command targeted.

At the second-year anniversary of Soleimani's assassination by order of then-U.S.President Donald Trump, the Iranian Republic and its allies in other countries have held memorial events in honour of the late commander of the Quds Force representing the overseas arm of the elite Revolutionary Guards. In the immediate aftermath of Soleimani's death, Iran ordered its IRGC command to avenge his death, and rockets were dispatched into Iraq to hit two U.S. bases there. Anticipating a U.S. response, Iran was on high alert.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guards shot down a Ukraine International Airlines plane near Tehran, evidently mistaking it for a possible U.S. rocket attack. All aboard the airliner, 175 people, died, on Flight 752. Many of those who died were Iranian Canadians, many more Iranian students heading to Canadian universities on study visas. At first denying it shot down the plane, when evidence indicated otherwise, Iran finally admitted the airliner was shot down through a "disastrous mistake" by forces on high alert during confrontation with the U.S.

 

Iranians lift national flags during a ceremony in the capital Tehran, on January 3, 2022, commemorating the second anniversary of the killing in Iraq of top Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani (portrait) and Iraqi commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in a US raid. (Atta Kenare/AFP)

 

Now, while negotiating in Geneva with the United States over the resumption of the 2015 Nuclear Agreement, Iran threatens repercussions against the U.S. unless it brings the former president to trial as an assassin. In that case, a clear-eyed assessment of a man in military authority of a country guilty of terrorism on its own account who authorized the obliteration of a state assassin. Under the new U.S. administration, Iran has become bolder and more arrogant, prepared to risk another encounter with the U.S. which it doesn't believe will materialize.

But it does believe that in issuing a threat of this magnitude that it has given fair warning that it has the will, the intention and the capacity to launch strikes against the U.S., likely  by one of its proxies to avenge the death of its elite commander, depriving the country of a merciless, brilliant tactician whose thirst for provoking fear in the nation's adversaries, and in ordering death and destruction to those same adversaries could be slaked only by incapacitating him permanently.

 

As a warm up to vengeance implied, Monday saw an opening salvo: two armed drones targeted a Baghdad airport site used by the US-led coalition against the Islamic State group. "Two fixed-wing suicide drones, or improvised cruise missiles, attempted to attack Baghdad Airport this morning at approximately 4:30 a.m." A counter-rocket, artillery and mortar, or C-RAM, system “engaged them and they were shot down without incident", stated a coalition official. 

Israel, of course, is held by Iran to be equally guilty in the death of Soleimani, against whom the Ayatollahs have issued threats of annihilation as the 'little Satan' to the U.S.'s 'big Satan'. Iran has been dabbling in cyber warfare, just as China and Russia have been. It frequently issues threats to Israel, to wipe it from the face of the Middle East. Monday came another threat proposing to destroy its Dimona nuclear reactor. The Jerusalem Post website was hacked with a contrived photograph of the reactor being hit by a stylized missile, with a very special message of destruction.

An image showing a missile being fired from the ring of Qassem Soleimani toward Israel's nuclear reactor in Dimona is used to hack the Jerusalem Post website on January 3, 2022, the 2nd anniversary of Soleimani's killing (Screenshot/ The Jerusalem Post)