Texas Agriculture  •  OT/ICS Security • FDA FSMA 204 • TDPSA • SDVOSB

Texas Feeds the Country.
The Country's Adversaries Know It.

From irrigation pivots to feedlots to cold-chain processing, Texas agriculture is a prime target for ransomware, CUI exfiltration, and supply chain disruption. JBS Foods' Cactus TX plant went dark for days. Schreiber Foods disrupted dairy across the upper Midwest. CoreRecon protects the sector that feeds 30 million people.

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🎖️ SDVOSB-certified 🛡️ 24/7 TX SOC ⏱️ 30-Min Response SLA 📍 Texas-Based Team
Threat Reality — TX / TX-Adjacent Ag Incidents

This has hit Texas operations.
And the sector overall.

Ag-gate ransomware campaigns have targeted food processing, cold-chain logistics, and ingredient supply across the US. These three incidents show the scope — supply chain disruption, operational shutdown, and direct costs that dwarf the ransom itself.

Oct 2021 — TX-Adjacent Dairy Impact
Schreiber Foods
Ransomware attacked dairy processing systems in Wisconsin — but the impact cascaded across a supply chain that included Texas-based distributors and regional grocers. $2.5M ransom demand. Plants offline for 5 days. Milk supply chain disrupted across the upper Midwest and downstream into Texas retail channels.
Source: Wisconsin State Farmer, ZDNet, CyberScoop
May 2021 — TX Plant Confirmed
JBS Foods
REvil ransomware hit 13 US plants including the Cactus, TX facility and others across Texas, Colorado, and Utah. $11M ransom paid. Approximately 20% of US beef supply halted. The Cactus plant alone processes thousands of head of cattle daily — its shutdown rippled through every Texas feedlot in the supply chain.
Source: FBI, Reuters, Wikipedia
Feb 2023 — North America-Wide
Dole
Ransomware shut down North American operations entirely. Produce supply chain disrupted coast-to-coast. $10.5M direct costs in one quarter. Salad shortages reported in grocery chains including Texas H-E-B and Kroger. The attack demonstrated how a single ransomware event can paralyze a vertically integrated food supply chain.
Source: CNN, SEC filing, Supply Chain Dive
Download the TX Agriculture Threat Brief 2026 →
Regulatory Stack — Texas Agriculture

Four overlapping obligations.
One SOC covers them all.

Texas agriculture operators face a unique convergence: state privacy law, federal food safety rules, cyber incident reporting mandates, and emerging biosecurity-cyber overlap. CoreRecon maps every tier to the specific controls that satisfy each obligation.

State Law — Active
⚖️
TDPSA — Texas Data Privacy and Security Act
Eff. July 2024. Applies to any TX business processing personal data of 100K+ consumers or 25K+ with >50% revenue from data sales. Civil penalties of $7,500/violation enforced by the TX Attorney General. Employee PII, farm operation records, and supply chain partner data all in scope.

CoreRecon maps: access controls, breach notification, data inventory, vendor Due Diligence (3PL, cold-chain providers).
Federal — Active
🏛️
USDA Cybersecurity & Federal Advisory Landscape
Farm and Food Cybersecurity Act 2025 (H.R.1604/S.754) — bipartisan bills advancing through Congress to establish USDA cybersecurity coordination role. USDA National Farm Security Action Plan 2025. CISA Food & Ag Sector advisories. FBI IC3 agricultural warnings flagged for grain elevators, feedlots, and co-ops. DHS Homeland Threat Assessment 2024 flags adversaries targeting ag sector data including cattle disease management and foreign animal disease tracking systems.
Federal — Compliance Deadline Jul 2028
🧊
FDA FSMA 204 — Food Traceability Rule
21 CFR Part 1, Subpart S — applies to anyone manufacturing/processing/packing/holding foods on the Food Traceability List: leafy greens, shell eggs, fresh produce, nut butters, soft cheeses, finfish/crustaceans. 24-hr FDA response mandate. 2-year records retention requirement. Compliance deadline extended to July 2028 (was Jan 2026). Penalties $10,000+/violation.

CoreRecon maps: chain-of-custody records, backup/recovery of traceability data systems, cold-chain telemetry integrity, incident response for data system compromise.
Emerging — Biosecurity/Cyber Overlap
🦠
PSA / USDA APHIS — Biosecurity + Cyber Convergence
Foreign animal disease tracking systems, cattle disease management databases (USDA APHIS), and PSA grain handling operations increasingly run on networked SCADA/ICS systems. DHS Homeland Threat Assessment 2024 explicitly flags adversaries targeting agricultural data systems — not just to steal IP, but to compromise the integrity of disease surveillance data itself.

CoreRecon maps: SCADA system backup, OT/IT segmentation, BIOS integrity monitoring, incident response for agriculture-specific operational systems.
See the full TX agriculture breach cost model →
OT/ICS Security Controls — Texas Agriculture

8 controls built for the
way agriculture actually operates.

Standard IT security frameworks weren't built for irrigation pivots running ancient PLCs, feedlot automation systems with no vendor support, or cold-chain loggers that haven't been patched since installation. CoreRecon's agriculture controls are built around the actual OT/IT topology of farming and food processing operations.

01
OT/ICS Security for Irrigation, Grain & Processing
SCADA/PLC monitoring for irrigation pivots, grain handling equipment, feeding automation, and food processing lines. Passive network monitoring — no active scanning that could disrupt PLCs. CoreRecon Fortress tier covers OT-aware SIEM with signatures tuned for agriculture-specific ICS protocols.
02
IT/OT Network Segmentation
Prevent lateral movement from ERP systems (accounting, grain inventory, commodity trading) to the floor. Most farm co-op ransomware events originate from a compromised accounting workstation pivoting into SCADA systems. VLAN architecture + firewall rules documented in the SSP.
03
Cold-Chain Telemetry Monitoring
Temperature loggers, humidity sensors, and spoilage alert systems — all networked, all potential entry points. CoreRecon monitors cold-chain telemetry for anomalies that indicate sensor compromise (which can precede a cargo theft event) and ensures traceability data is backed up and recoverable within the FDA FSMA 204 24-hr window.
04
Phishing-Resistant MFA for Operational Accounts
Farm co-op managers, grain buyers, feedlot operators, and logistics coordinators are high-value targets for BEC — they wire large amounts and don't expect the same security posture as a bank. Phishing-resistant MFA (FIDO2/passkeys) on operational accounts — not just corporate email.
05
Incident Response Plan — Seasonal Windows
A ransomware event during harvest or planting is catastrophic in ways a normal IR playbook doesn't capture. CoreRecon builds IR plans that account for seasonal operational constraints — planting windows where IT systems can't be taken offline, harvest where every hour of downtime costs yield. Pre-auth playbooks for every tier.
06
Vendor/3PL Cybersecurity Requirements
Cold-chain 3PLs, feed suppliers, grain elevators, and custom harvester contractors all have access to your systems and data. TDPSA requires vendor due diligence. CoreRecon builds cybersecurity requirements into your supply chain contracts and assesses 3PL security posture as part of the tier engagement.
07
Backup & Recovery for SCADA Systems
Immutable backups of SCADA configurations and automation logic for irrigation, feeding, and grain handling systems. Standard IT backup doesn't cover PLC ladder logic or SCADA configurations — those require a specialized recovery process CoreRecon documents and tests annually.
08
Ag-Sector Phishing Training
Phishing lures specific to agriculture: fake grain price quotes, fake USDA correspondence, fake equipment service notifications, fake commodity broker wiring instructions. CoreRecon quarterly simulated phishing with agriculture-specific templates. Completion records maintained for TDPSA and CMMC awareness requirements.
Transparent Pricing — Agriculture Edition

OT-aware SOC coverage for
grain elevators, feedlots, and processors.

Sentinel covers the basics — MFA, awareness training, basic logging. Fortress adds OT/ICS visibility, cold-chain telemetry monitoring, and IT/OT segmentation. Command adds the full IR playbook with seasonal agricultural windows and FDA FSMA 204 response capability.

Sentinel
$89 / endpoint / month
10-endpoint minimum • Month-to-month
  • MFA deployment on operational accounts (co-op managers, grain buyers)
  • Quarterly phishing simulation with ag-specific templates
  • SIEM log collection — 90-day retention
  • TDPSA data inventory and vendor due diligence templates
  • 24/7 SOC alert triage
  • Monthly security posture report
Agriculture Recommended
Fortress
$109 / endpoint / month
10-endpoint minimum • Month-to-month
  • Everything in Sentinel
  • OT/ICS monitoring for SCADA, irrigation, grain handling systems
  • IT/OT network segmentation — documented VLAN architecture
  • Cold-chain telemetry anomaly monitoring
  • Encrypted immutable backup for SCADA configurations
  • Vendor/3PL cybersecurity assessment (up to 5 vendors)
  • FDA FSMA 204 records backup and recovery testing
FDA FSMA 204 Ready
Command
$129 / endpoint / month
10-endpoint minimum • Month-to-month
  • Everything in Fortress
  • 30-min analyst SLA — any time, including harvest/planting windows
  • Full IR plan with seasonal operational constraints documented
  • 24-hr FDA FSMA 204 response workflow (traceability data systems)
  • TDPSA breach notification workflow — TX AG notification
  • Annual tabletop exercise with ag-specific scenarios
  • BIOS integrity monitoring for OT equipment
Free Security Assessment — TX Agriculture

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Texas feeds 30 million people. Make sure your operation can keep doing it. Download the TX Agriculture Threat Brief →

Free Tool · Texas-Calibrated IBM CODB 2025
What Does a Breach Actually Cost a Texas Ag Operation?
Plug in endpoint count, revenue band, and cold-chain dependency. Get a Texas-calibrated IBM CODB 2025 breach cost, TDPSA notification costs, and CoreRecon ROI — in 30 seconds. Includes FDA FSMA 204 records recovery cost modeling.
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