Helping Energy Companies Prevent Cyber Attacks

Energy Sector

Energy sector enterprises face unique challenges and vulnerabilities that complicate cybersecurity efforts, which only increases the stakes in the face of cyber attacks.

Across the industry, cyber attacks have been fueled by the sector’s focus on operational availability and by energy organizations’ increasing acquisition and integration of digital technologies.

LookingGlass can help energy sector companies improve their cybersecurity posture by leveraging an “outside-in” view. With intelligent attack surface monitoring, LookingGlass can identify which assets and services are connected to the internet and if they have vulnerabilities or exposures that can be exploited by threat actors. This can help energy sector organizations implement compensating security controls, prioritize patches, and even optimize threat hunting efforts.

Energy Sector Cyber Challenges

The energy sector is a key part of critical infrastructure, and the impact of a successful attack has proven to be highly damaging. Below are some of the factors contributing to the energy sector’s cyber risk.

Nature of the Sector: Energy organizations cannot risk falling offline. At the same time, the mix of IT and operational technology (OT) systems only amplifies the cyber risk. No longer does the threat of a cyber attack against an energy organization require deep expertise of SCADA or ICS equipment. The Colonial Pipeline attack, among others, has proven that any attack against an energy sector organization can be devastating.

Unique Vulnerabilities: The energy sector comprises a broad range of firms involved in the production and distribution of energy including oil and gas exploration, production and refining, renewable energy development, electricity generation, transmission, and distribution as well as nuclear energy. Their businesses range from discovery and development of energy resources to power generation, requiring a wide variety of technology and equipment to service different populations and customers. This diversity presents unique vulnerabilities to the energy sector and its supply chain.

Talent Shortage: The global cybersecurity talent shortage impacts every sector. For the energy sector, the talent shortage is compounded by demographics: many energy sector workers are older and retiring, but younger people are less attracted to the more traditional, in-person work environments required by many energy sector organizations.

Broad Motivations: Cyber threats targeting the energy sector are varied, and this only presents additional challenges. Not only is ransomware a growing threat, but nation-state or state-affiliated threat actors recognize how impactful taking an energy company down would be. In having to defend against all lines of potential attack, energy sector organizations may often feel stretched thin on budget and resources.

LookingGlass Capabilities

LookingGlass delivers actionable threat intelligence to help customers in the energy sector operationalize insights and prevent a catastrophic cybersecurity incident. Our capabilities include:

Attack surface management: We continuously monitor assets and networks for vulnerabilities and exposures from the outside in to highlight focus areas for your security team. Learn more.

Threat intelligence: We provide normalized, contextualized, and correlated threat intel that allows you to operationalize insight and respond to threats faster.

Threat hunting: Our technology can quickly identify threat actors and actor capabilities, while using data science to help anticipate an adversary’s next move.

Cyber workforce, analyst, and incident response support: Our platform enables teams to collaborate more effectively, share intel, and develop coordinated defense and response plans.

Energy Sector