Concept: Siemens Energy and ServiceNow have collaborated to introduce a cybersecurity solution for the oil & gas industry. Siemens Energy’s monitoring and detection industrial IoT security platform and ServiceNow’s cross-enterprise digital workflows are combined to offer the cyber security solution. The combined software solution monitors detect and respond to cyber threats for connected oil & gas infrastructure.

Nature of Disruption: Siemens Energy’s AI-based software from Managed Detection and Response (MDR) service provides visibility and reference to the oil & gas operating environment. It is connected with ServiceNow’s Operational Technology Management (OT Management) system that creates digital workflow against cyber threats. The solution has a detection engine and creates a workflow to streamline operations for the analyst to monitor anomalous behavior in Security Operations Centers (SOC). It allows oil & gas operators to act accordingly on threat intelligence. The responsive actions come under Precision Defense, a response method of deploying appropriate, targeted, and proportionate measures. It helps to correct and recover from cyber incidents. The system leverages AI and digital twin technologies to compare real-time data points against a properly functioning asset. Moreover, it gives insight to the analyst as to which asset is functioning off track or which are under cyber attack.

Outlook: Oil & gas operations upstream, midstream, and downstream are prime targets for cyber attacks. Criminal enterprises and hackers with political agendas are the sources of such threats. In oil & gas, operational technology (OT) is at higher risk than information technology (IT). Cyber threats impacting the supply chain are difficult to counter. Siemens Energy’s collaboration with ServiceNow brings solutions that address threats on OT as well as IT. Moreover, their collaboration enables oil & gas enterprises to deliver critical services and protect their customers and stakeholders.

This article was originally published in Verdict.co.uk