Poorly protected farming businesses need to take the threat of cyberattacks seriously, due to the damaging follow-on effects a compromised business can have on the rest of the supply chain.

With small to medium size enterprises (SMEs) hacked every 19 seconds, that's the message from Nadia Kadhim, Naq Cyber co-founder and CEO.

Nadia said: "Criminal groups are targeting agricultural businesses more and more, due to the flow-on disruption to other industries, such as transport and retail.

"Quite simplistic, but sophisticated, methods are being used and agriculture is an easy target, due to the use of technology in many different aspects of the business."

Naq Cyber, and founders Nadia and Chris Clinton, completed Cheltenham-based National Cyber Security Centre's (NCSC) accelerator programme and soon partnered with Farm491, based at the Royal Agricultural University (RAU) in Cirencester, after being contacted by several farm businesses that had been breached and seeking support.

Nadia continued: "Cyber security is about data, but also the system as a whole. One specific agricultural issue that we've been investigating with the help of Farm491 is that there is a large risk for some farms to be targeted by animal rights or vegan activists.

"We can support farms to take preventative action by scanning specific parts of the web to see if the farm name or location has been mentioned and if there are public events planned.

"Unfortunately, when SMEs are hacked, the financial loss can be between £8,000 and £300,000 alongside the loss of business, reputational damage, and operational disturbance.

"In addition, the Information Commissioner's Office has also started to crack down on data breaches and non-compliance with GDPR, with fines ranging from £15,000-25,000."

Naq Cyber has also noticed that there are now more farmers creating websites to support their marketing, which can further increase their risk to cyber-attacks.

Nadia said: "We take their website details and then scan the 'dark web', a hidden collective of internet sites favoured by hackers, for any mention of the farm which then feeds into their system. We use this, combined with best practice cyber security, to create a Cyber Security Action Plan which details, step by step, what the company needs to do to protect themselves and why it is important."

Farm491 supports entrepreneurs and innovators to help grow the UK's AgriTech ecosystem and promote the adoption of new technologies in the future of food production.

Nadia said: "Going from an employed and stable job to becoming an entrepreneur is daunting and Farm491, alongside the other accelerator, helped show us the way. Sarah and the team at Farm491 have been great in putting us in touch with anyone and everyone, as this isn't a target market that we were previously familiar with."