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• A grain handler in Minnesota has been the subject of a ransomware attack.

A grain handler in Minnesota has been the subject of a ransomware attack.

Crystal Valley Cooperative, a Minnesota agricultural organization, said it had been the subject of a ransomware attack in recent days, making it the second Midwestern farm-services supplier to be forced to take systems offline due to cybersecurity concerns in the last week.

Crystal Valley, which provides fertilizer to farmers and buys their crops, said it learned of the attack on Sunday, which prompted it to shut down its operating systems and stop accepting major payment cards.

"This attack has infected the computer systems at Crystal Valley and severely interrupted the daily operations of the company," Crystal Valley said in a statement on its website. It asked customers for understanding while the company resolves the issue.

Crystal Valley was unable to mix fertilizer or fulfill orders for livestock feed as a result of the attack, according to Kevin Paap, a corn and soybean farmer in Garden City, Minnesota." With the help of some other local co-ops, they're helping grind some feed and sharing the burden," he said.

NEW Cooperative Inc, based in Iowa, announced on Monday that its services were down due to a cybersecurity incident. On its website, the Russian-speaking cybercriminal outfit BlackMatter claimed to have stolen data from the farm services provider.