The Siemens-PAS partnership enables energy companies to secure their complete operating environments and guard against cyber attacks (illustration: Siemens)

Siemens, a global engineering and technology provider, and PAS Global, provider of industrial control system (ICS) cybersecurity solutions, announced an agreement to provide fleet-wide, real time monitoring for control systems. By leveraging the unique capabilities of both companies, this partnership will provide customers with: (1) deep analytics required to identify and inventory proprietary assets; and (2) visibility to detect and respond effectively to attacks across the operating environment.

As the utilities and oil and gas sectors become increasingly digital to achieve revenue and efficiency gains, there is a corresponding need to identify cyber threats at their earliest stages – going beyond compliance regulations to secure operations. Organisations in these sectors must defend their entire digital footprint against persistent and highly sophisticated cyber threats without disrupting business processes.

According to recent research conducted by Ponemon Institute on the state of cybersecurity in the US oil and gas industry, deployment of cybersecurity measures in the industry isn’t keeping pace with the growth of digitalisation in oil and gas operations. Just 35% of survey respondents rate their organisation’s OT cyber readiness as high. 68% of respondents say their organisation experienced at least one cyber compromise, while 61% say their organisation’s industrial control systems protection and security is not adequate.

The Siemens-PAS global strategic partnership bridges the visibility gap for distributed, legacy control assets to provide a comprehensive view into fleet security. Focused on gathering detailed configuration data down to the sensor, the Siemens-PAS partnership will enable customers to secure proprietary systems in multi-vendor environments – guarding against cyber attacks as well as unauthorised engineering changes.

As an industrial technology provider for more than 165 years, Siemens has an inherent and holistic understanding of how to manage cyber risk in complex operating environments. A leader in the OT industry, Siemens brings to the partnership deep domain know-how and solutions for OT cyber, including security program design, security lifecycle management, plant security monitoring, and incident response.

For more than two decades, PAS has solved operational and security challenges for leading chemical, refining and power companies across the globe. Its best-in-class Cyber Integrity™ solution provides foundational inventory management that covers all the major cyber assets found in plants today. The solution detects new or missing devices, aggregates configuration data at the asset level, baselines security-related data to monitor for change, and captures system interdependencies.

“Utilities and the oil and gas sector confront sophisticated, persistent and aggressive cyber threats in the operational environment. Enhanced fleet-wide visibility is critical to detecting attacks and anomalies at the earliest possible stage,” says Leo Simonovich, Siemens Vice President for Global Cyber Security. “With Siemens’ deep operational monitoring expertise and PAS’ leadership developing solutions to protect industrial control systems, this partnership is singularly-positioned to provide essential visibility, build a mindset of perpetual vigilance and ultimately strengthen the energy industry defences.”

“With smarter, integrated automation comes a difficult challenge that has repercussions from the boardroom to facility operations: ICS cybersecurity,” says Eddie Habibi, founder and CEO of PAS Global. “It is generally well understood that you cannot secure what you cannot see. That is why accurate, up-to-date visibility of system inventory is a fundamental element of any cybersecurity solution. Our partnership with Siemens delivers a managed security service that covers the entire industrial enterprise.”

Tags: PAS Global, Siemens