Security researchers found multiple vulnerabilities in the systems of John Deere and Case New Holland, two of the country's largest agriculture t

Hacker Says He Found a ‘Tractorload of Vulnerabilities’ at John Deere

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2021-08-13 16:00:06

Security researchers found multiple vulnerabilities in the systems of John Deere and Case New Holland, two of the country's largest agriculture tech companies, according to a presentation at the Def Con hacking conference . In the wrong hands, they warn that these weaknesses could put consumers and the global food supply chain at risk.

Led by a hacker known as Sick Codes, a group of researchers conducted a “good faith” audit of John Deere and Case New Holland and found what they described as a "tractor load of vulnerabilities," they said in the talk. Both companies produce high-tech machinery used in mass agriculture. The hackers warned that a cyber attack on the users of agricultural businesses such as these could severely compromise crop yield and trade secrets. During the talk, Sick Codes went through a series of vulnerabilities his group found, culminating in vulnerabilities he described as allowing them "to upload files to any user, log in as any user, destroy any farm, run any farm off the road, upload whatever we want, download whatever we want, destroy any data, log in to any third party accounts. We could literally do whatever the heck we wanted with anything we wanted on the John Deere operation center, period. And that's when we pretty much stopped because we pretty much had rope on the whole organization."

John Deere claimed in a statement that "none of the claims—including those identified at DEF CON—have enabled access to customer accounts, agronomic data, dealer accounts, or sensitive personal information. Further, contrary to claims made at DEF CON, none of the issues identified by the security researchers would have affected machines in use. John Deere considers the security of our systems and the data within them a top priority and we work tirelessly to identify and address any misconfigurations as quickly as possible. Deere also recognizes the important role our products play in food security and within the global food supply chain."