Is Deere vulnerable to Malware and ransom ware?

[Raul-02]

They have sought to lock farmers out of their tractors forcing them to a Deere dealership, but the process by which they do it may be a vulnerability

A New Jailbreak for John Deere Tractors Rides the Right-to-Repair Wave

A hacker has formulated an exploit that provides root access to two popular models of the company’s farm equipment.

www.wired.com

 

[Roadworthy]

Anything with a computer or internet access may be vulnerable to malware and ransomware. I would be leery of any hacker who supposedly got root access to any computer. He is another potential source for malware. Root access can be a very dangerous tool in the hands of a person not knowledgeable in the operating system. One may delete stuff required for proper system operation.

 

[ericm979]

More of a risk is the unpatched old software Deere is running. Even with the latest update from Deere I would say with 100% certainty that they have a lot of unpatched vulnerabilities. I've seen a lot of systems and when they're proprietary and locked down like this there's always unfixed vulns. When you know people can't see what's running, you get lazy and don't update it.

Another larger risk is Deere's internet portal for managing the units. The researcher in the article first started on that and found serious problems very quickly.

Deere should be shovelling $$$ their way for doing QA for them, but they're probably hiring expensive lawyers to find a way to shut them up instead.