IoT Powered Agricultural Cyber-Physical System: Security Issue Assessment

Smart farming or development in agriculture Cyber-Physical Systems has led to the development of various IOT based innovative platforms to aid automated systems for precision agriculture. There are smart devices (IoT devices, smart vehicles, UAVs, ROVs, and drones) and sensors (magnetic, electrochemical, and mechanical sensors)constantly connected at the edge and procure data that is uploaded to cloud-based interfaces for further processing. The sensors can be maneuvered using an insecure, intelligent farming system to create choreographed cybersecurity attacks on a particular farm. End-to-end system is achieved by putting together smart devices, communication media, uploading data to the cloud, intermediate nodes, and processing this data at a central unit like the cloud or intermediate processing at other nodes. Cyber-physical systems are a combination of many technologies, resulting in a large number of security threats. This chapter is to delineate the attack vectors and categories of threats that can be performed on these innovative IOT based agricultural products; if not appropriately secured, can lead to more strategized and sophisticated security attacks that can hinder production for a region under effect and thus bringing down the economy and food stocks of Nations who implemented smart agriculture.