In the rapidly digitizing landscape of the food and agriculture industry, cyber threats are evolving just as fast as the technology powering farm equipment, supply chains, and operations. From tractors running on IoT to cloud-connected cold storage, every advancement increases the sector’s exposure to cybersecurity risks, and small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) are particularly vulnerable.
According to the 2025 Food and Ag-ISAC Cybersecurity Guide, SMBs in the food and agriculture sector are urged to adopt proactive cybersecurity practices to protect their operations from growing threats. The guide outlines a broad range of security measures, but one strategy stands out for its ability to prevent malicious programs from ever executing in the first place: application allowlisting.
“Is That Allow(list)ed?”: A Smarter Approach to Cyber Defense
Application allowlisting flips the traditional cybersecurity model on its head. Instead of creating an endless list of known bad software to block (a blacklist), allowlisting blocks everything by default, except what’s been explicitly approved.
“Rather than setting up a blocklist for certain applications, allowlisting takes the opposite approach: all applications are blocked except for those that admins have permitted. This can stop malicious applications like malware from being downloaded and installed, even if an employee accidentally attempts to do so.”
— Food and Ag-ISAC Cybersecurity Guide, 2025【source】.
This strategy aligns with the Zero Trust framework, where no device or application is trusted by default, even inside the network. In sectors like agriculture, where technology is integrated across everything from irrigation to inventory, this model significantly reduces the attack surface.
Yet despite its benefits, only about one-third of organizations had implemented allowlisting as of 2021, according to the guide. Why? For many SMBs, allowlisting has historically felt overwhelming to implement.
PC Matic Makes Allowlisting Accessible
That’s where PC Matic enters the conversation. Known for its Made-in-America, award-winning cybersecurity solutions, PC Matic takes a unique, automated approach to application allowlisting. It’s not just a feature, it’s the foundation of their protection strategy.
Here’s how PC Matic makes allowlisting practical for businesses of all sizes:
- Global Allowlist curated by a U.S.-based malware research team
- Local Allowlisting Controls for full flexibility in business environments
- Minimal Management Overhead through automation and cloud-based control
- Real-time protection that stops unauthorized applications before they run
Whether you’re a small family-owned farm or a growing ag-tech company, PC Matic gives you the power to lock down devices while minimizing complexity for IT teams, or even a single business owner wearing multiple hats.
Why This Matters Now
The Food and Ag Cyber Threat Report, also cited in the 2025 guide, identified over 50 adversaries actively targeting the sector, with some of the most common attack techniques including:
- Living-off-the-Land (LOTL) techniques – used by 92% of attackers
- Phishing and spear phishing – used by 88%
- Custom malware and stealthy exfiltration – used by 80% and 70%, respectively
- Supply chain compromise and destructive attacks – used by nearly a quarter
Once malware lands in your environment, it can move fast. But with application allowlisting, you’re already ahead, because most of that malware never runs to begin with.
“The fewer applications that can make their way onto your employees’ devices, the smaller the chance that something malicious can make its way there.”
— Food and Ag-ISAC Cybersecurity Guide, 2025【source】.
Defense in Depth—With a Solid Foundation
Application allowlisting is just one piece of the puzzle. The 2025 Food and Ag Cybersecurity Guide recommends a comprehensive approach, including:
- Security awareness training
- Multi-factor authentication (MFA)
- Remote Monitoring & Management (RMM) protection
- Regular backups and encryption
- Continuous account auditing
- Role-based access control (RBAC)
But allowlisting offers something the others don’t: a front-line defense that prevents attacks before they start.
Conclusion
The message is clear: If you’re part of the food and agriculture supply chain, cybersecurity can no longer be an afterthought. And for SMBs, the tools are finally available to put enterprise-grade protection within reach.
With the power of application allowlisting—and solutions like PC Matic—you don’t need a large IT budget to implement smart, scalable defenses. It just takes the right approach.
“These relatively small changes pay big dividends in protecting your information, leading to saved time and capital in the process.”
— Food and Ag-ISAC Cybersecurity Guide, 2025【source】.
Read the full guide: Food and Ag-ISAC Cybersecurity Guide, 2025 (PDF)
Learn more about PC Matic’s approach to allowlisting: https://www.pcmatic.com/smb
