A farmer from Hagendorn near Cham in the canton of Zug in Switzerland has fallen victim to a cyberattack in which unknown culprits hacked his milking robot. The cyber criminals then encrypted the stored data. The criminals ultimately demanded a ransom of 10,000 dollars for the decryption of the data. However, because the farmer did not pay, he lost access to important information. As a result, he had to euthanize one of his pregnant cows due to complications related to pregnancy. The financial damage is estimated at about 6,400 euros. To this day, it is unclear who is behind this cyberattack.

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The encrypted data included, among other things, information about the cows’ pregnancies. The farmer told the Luzerner Zeitung that the animal might still be alive if he had been able to read the exact insemination date from the milking robot. As a result, the hack directly led to the cow’s death.