Cyberbiosecurity Importance in Relation to Small Fermentation Businesses and How to Integrate it into Known Hazard Planning Tools

Cyberbiosecurity threats are on the rise in many various industries (Drape et al., 2021). With attacks on water treatment plants, medical facilities and more, awareness for what cyberbiosecurity is, what it looks like, and how to implement countermeasures into known hazard planning tools is dire.

This project set out to address these issues in the context of small fermentation businesses. A survey was conducted but, due to low response rate, there was no statistical nor quantitative analysis performed on the survey results. The information gleaned from the survey was used to better guide how a factsheet would be created and used to gauge, what the fermentation community in North Carolina and Virginia was aware of in relation to food safety, the Food Safety and Modernization Act, and cyberbiosecurity.

A factsheet was designed to guide small fermentation businesses on how to identify cyberbiosecurity is, what hazards exist, how to implement control measures into known hazard planning tools, and what methods exist to better protect their businesses.