The challenge of keeping offshore drilling secure

THE oil and gas industry presents a unique and complex cybersecurity profile. A serious attack disabling offshore drilling rigs carries devastating consequences not just for the organisations that own the infrastructure, but for wider global economies as supply is disrupted. Due to the often precarious and isolated nature of offshore facilities, such attacks could easily go beyond the digital to directly endanger real human lives.

At the same time, organisations face pressure to keep up with the wider business world by digitising and automating their operational technology (OT) systems. For example, Malaysia-owned Petronas uses a real-time data management solution to manage and analyse its rig-site drilling operations remotely. While digitalisation brings unprecedented benefits, the Industrial Control Systems (ICS) and Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems at the heart of the industry are notoriously challenging to secure in the digital age.

In August 2012, hackers launched an attack on Saudi Aramco, which partially or completely wiped out 35,000 computers. This put the company's business into turmoil as all of its global offices had to go offline for five months to contain the spread of the Shamoon virus. More recently in 2019, Hibiscus Petroleum, a Malaysian firm, faced a cyberattack which prompted a partial system shutdown, although operations were fortunately unaffected.