The risks to the agricultural community of losing money through cyber crime is to be addressed at this year’s Royal Highland Show in a series of free presentations to be held throughout the event.
Police Scotland oficers, along with staff from the Scottish Business Resilience Centre, will deliver cyber crime prevention surgeries on the Police Scotland stand (Avenue H) at 1pm, 2pm and 3pm on each of the four days of the event, from Thursday to Sunday, June 21-24.
Available to any member of the public attending the show, but specifically targeted at people working in the agricultural community, each session will highlight the types of tactics used by criminals to steal money through the use of computers, or how they can use them to in filtrate and lock access to accounts and systems, and then extort the end user to get their data back. Gerry Grant, chief ethical hacking consultant at the Scottish Business Resilience Centre, said: ‘The agricultural community can be at particular risk at certain times of the year when farm subsidy payments are made, and this means that business bank accounts may have a higher than normal balance, and are therefore at greater risk.