FARMERS have been warned that bumper payments from the Scottish Government could see them become the next big target for cyber criminals.

The Scottish Business Resilience Centre (SBRC), the body that is charged with creating a secure environment in which business can safely trade, issued the warning following the decision at Holyrood that saw pay-outs of around £254 million made late last month to farmers and crofters.

It represented up to 90 per cent of the farmers’ Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) basic payment support loans.

However, the SBRC has pointed out that by going through a simple research process – and search engines such as the ubiquitous Google immediately spring to mind – it is possible for anyone to find out how much an individual farmer has received in previous CAP payments and how much they are likely to receive this year.

The SBRC’s experts believe the widely publicised payments make farmers a prime target for cyber criminals.

Gerry Grant, the organisation’s chief ethical hacker, said: “I know how vital these payments are to the livelihood of farmers and crofters.

“This makes it even more important that they’re fully aware that it can make them an easy target for criminals to try and scam them.

“Criminals can easily work out an accurate estimation of what a farmer is likely to receive in CAP payments and armed with this information, they can try and steal the money.

“They can send various emails to try and get passwords for bank accounts or even try and trick unsuspecting farmers into making payments to the wrong account.”

Grant said this particular type of cybercrime was known as CEO or mandate fraud and could potentially put famers’ livelihoods at risk.

He has urged farmers to be conscious that they will become likely targets over the coming weeks following their CAP payments, and should be extra vigilant about any suspicious emails or phone calls.

The types of calls made by the fraudsters will usually involve someone asking them to take some form of urgent action in relation to payments or their bank accounts.

This could be a request to pay a supplier through a different bank account, or could involve them being asked to review their own account security.

Grant said anyone who receives a call which they think might be suspect, should try to verify the email address or phone number with the person who initiated contact.

One way of doing this is to simply hang up and then search the internet for the relevant phone number or address.

He said the main things farmers should be on the lookout for are emails from suppliers asking for funds to be transferred to a different bank account, emails claiming that there is a problem with a particular account, or phone calls claiming to be from their banks saying that there appears to be unusual activity on their accounts.

They could also fall victim to a hacker if they have simply been looking at new plants or equipment.

“It’s a very similar type of crime that we’ve seen recently involving the football clubs in this country,” added Grant.

“It was well documented that top clubs have lost a lot of money as a result of cybercrime recently, which shows that everyone can be at risk.”

Last month, Scotland’s 42 league clubs were put on alert after Hearts and Hamilton Accies were hit by cybercriminals.

Grant added: “The criminals are likely to target the farmers because it isn’t too difficult to try and seem convincing on the phone or in an email to them.

“A hacker could easily suggest that they’re aware the farmer has been looking at a new tractor and therefore seem legitimate to the farmer, as they likely will have been looking at upgrading recently with the new money in their pocket.”