Energy firms power the world with secure Microsoft technologies
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Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) at power companies understand that because critical infrastructure is a persistent target for cyberthreats, there is a growing need to transform security, write Hanna Grene and Mikhail Falkovich from Microsoft.
CISOs are tasked with managing a complicated portfolio while protecting against cyber risks from both insiders and nation-state actors. Left unresolved, these challenges create a ripple effect across the enterprise and lead to issues like:
- Increasingly complex environments: Widespread digital adoption combined with evolving customer preferences, decentralised energy generation and a changing workforce are driving utility providers to rethink their services and business models to help increase flexibility and maintain a resilient grid.
- Tool fatigue: Many power companies work with hundreds of disparate management tools that are costly to manage and limited in cross-visibility. These tools must be integrated and maintained by teams with the right skillsets.
- Technical debt: While many utilities are designing new solutions in support of the energy transition and the grid of the future, they still rely heavily on legacy infrastructures that carry significant tech debt. These legacy systems increase cybersecurity and operational risks as well as operational expenses.
Modernising infrastructure is costly and not easily adaptable as the risk landscape evolves. In fact, 59% of cybersecurity teams identify integration of legacy operational technology (OT) and modern information technology (IT) systems as their biggest challenge to securing OT.
If you’re a CISO, how do you solve the challenge of securing both IT and OT against modern and fast-changing threats?
The answer is to work with technology partners who not only understand threat actors around the world, but who also recognise the business risks and operational concerns across the industry.
Increasing security and efficiency without sacrificing value
With a unified security stack running on the Microsoft Cloud, utilities can significantly reduce the number of tools they manage every day to achieve lower costs, time savings and better insight into IT and OT environments.
For example, Turkish energy provider Enerjisa Üretim partnered with Senkron.Energy Digital Services to buid Senkron ROC, a remote operations centre that represents a critical piece of becoming cloud-native. Knowing that a single cyberthreat could shut down operations, Enerjisa Üretim also established its Operational Technology-Specific Security Operation Centre (OT SOC), which relies on Microsoft Defender for IoT and Microsoft Sentinel to operate around the clock and process 3.3 million security events daily.
The IBM Maximo Application Suite on Azure for asset operations and maintenance is another example. High performance and ultra-low latency combined with the multi-layered security capabilities of the Azure stack provide a foundation for secure analytics that boost operational resiliency and reliability.
Security solutions to meet your needs
With Microsoft Security Services, customers can leverage the latest technologies and deep industry understanding to enhance their security posture today.
Microsoft Defender for IoT offers a complete inventory and continuous monitoring of connected assets across vendors and protocols; Microsoft Purview can secure and govern data across your entire estate while helping to reduce risk and meet compliance requirements; and Microsoft Sentinel provides enterprise-grade intelligent security analytics that help detect previously undetected threats and minimise false positives.
To support continued innovation in data security and cloud adoption, we collaborated with the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) and the Department of Energy’s Grid Deployment Office on an initiative for seamless integration of cloud technology into the grid of the future. Now in its pilot phase, the Cirrus cloud feasibility assessment tool (Cirrus) offers strategic guidance on how to prepare for, or deploy, a cloud solution responsibly.
Opportunities on the horizon with AI
It’s an exciting time for the industry as AI creates tremendous potential for energy companies to increase their security posture.
Imagine equipping workers with Microsoft Security Copilot to help them identify threats earlier, build their risk mitigation skills and respond to incidents faster. What took hours or days to complete can now be finished in minutes with AI.
With AI advancements analysing trillions of security signals daily, together we can build a safer, more resilient digital energy ecosystem.
Learn more with Microsoft for Energy and Resources
Ready to dive deeper? Don’t miss our webinar, Rethinking cybersecurity in a renewable-powered energy system on October 10, 2024, where we will be sharing how leading energy companies are using the power of technology to safeguard their businesses. Read more about the webinar and sign up to attend.
You might be interested in:
Microsoft power and utilities eBook: Orchestrating the Grid
Accelerating the energy transition with Artificial Intelligence
About the authors
Hanna Grene is Worldwide Go-to-Market Strategy and Operations Leader, Energy and Resources Industry, Microsoft.
Mikhail Falkovich is Customer Security Officer, Microsoft.
About Microsoft
Transform the energy and resources industry and achieve net zero with technology innovation to deliver safe, reliable, carbon-free energy for a sustainable future. By uniting AI and data platforms, as well as productivity, intelligent cloud, and intelligent edge, Microsoft enables companies to solve their most complex challenges, accelerate the energy transition and deliver better outcomes.
