Why your greenhouse might be at risk of a cyberattack

Added on 14 February 2024

Tags

Why your greenhouse might be at risk of a cyberattack

On a Friday morning in late April, Cathy Kowalczyk, part of the family that owns Willoway Nurseries, rushed into the company’s Huron, OH, location, not in the least sleepy despite the early hour. Her IT team member, Dan White, had called her less than 15 minutes earlier saying a ransomware attack was underway. He happened to log on at 4:30 a.m. and realized what was happening. He told her he was shutting down every system as quickly as possible. But it had been underway for a couple hours already.

As she came into the offices, she was shocked to see that the cyber criminals had managed to print out their “offer” to help retrieve Willoway’s data. The offer was everywhere, even on a sheet of paper on the copier tray. A physical ransom note for a digital crime.

The attack took place right in the middle of the prime shipping season. Garden centers across the country needed their hydrangeas, boxwoods, and other plants during the most profitable time of year — the weeks leading up to Mother’s Day.

Modern growers have a lot in common with their ancestors millennia ago. Crops, even the ornamental kind, still need to be planted, cultivated, before maturing enough to be useful.

But like any other business, it relies on technology to operate. Each treatment each plant receives is stored online, as are purchase orders. At Willoway, it’s machines that help make life easier for workers, like the watering station after cuttings are placed in their pots, or the one that adds rice hull mulch to spinning pots to ensure an even application. Sensors connected to weather stations automatically open and close the greenhouse panels to ensure a healthy environment for the plants, as well as run the lighting system, which turns on only when the plants need extra light.