Ponemon Study Finds Cybersecurity Lacking In Oil & Gas Industries

Ponemon has published research that looks at the state of cyber security, particularly in the Oil and Gas industry. Edgard Capdevielle, CEO at Nozomi commented below.

Edgard Capdevielle, CEO at Nozomi Networks:

“While the oil and gas industries aim to make improvements to their cyber security risk posture, it’s not straight forward and this recent survey reinforces the fact that even those within the industry foresee major shortfalls. The combination of rapidly advancing digitally connected industrial components against an escalating threat landscape, with operators facing energy price pressures which in turn can restrain investments, have combined to create a truly testing environment that’s balanced on a knife-edge.

“That insiders – whether criminal or negligent, are a top cyber security threat substantiates the need for ICS real-time monitoring and process anomaly detection. Control system traffic is predictable so, by establishing a baseline of ICS network communications and conducting active monitoring for anomalies, any thing that detracts from expected behavioural patterns identifies malicious or unintentional process impacts/disruptions – whether from internal or external sources.

“While there’s no easy answer, there is some good news in that innovations – such as machine learning and Artificial Intelligence enhanced cyber-attack detection, can help companies leverage technologies to gain efficiencies in their industrial process cybersecurity programs, as well as speeding the investigation of incidents to contain attacks before significant damage can occur, without needing to add additional staffing.”