There has been a staggering increase in cybersecurity attacks, particularly against small and medium-sized businesses and organizations in rural America. Many small businesses cannot recover from such attacks – 50 percent will close within six months of an attack. There is also a cybersecurity workforce shortage with more than 6,000 open positions in Wisconsin alone.
Through the WiSys U.S. National Science Foundation’s Regional Innovation Engines (NSF Engines) grant, our goal in the pilot project, CyberFirst Coop, is to address these issues in rural Wisconsin’s small agricultural businesses with a focus on farmers. A team of UW-Whitewater faculty and staff and partners will employ a student-based cybersecurity team to provide a broad-based assessment of small, rural agricultural businesses (farms) information systems, including determination of their vulnerability to security breaches such as ransomware attacks. We will assess cyber-readiness of agricultural organizations and help learners and employees develop their cybersecurity skills to add new cybersecurity talent to the pipeline.
