Mr. Vivekanand, Director (Finance, Taxation & Legal), FIPI began the session with the opening remarks. He spoke about the recent trends indicating that the Oil and Gas companies have shown a drastic increase in implementing the latest technology in the existing systems to monitor real time developments and to keep a track on production cycle. He mentioned that as companies begin to incorporate more of technology be it with regards to production or exploration, they are highly exposed to cyber-attack threats. Hence, having a sound and secure security system is of utmost importance for any organisation.

Mr. Sambit Sinha, Partner EY (Technology Consulting) made a presentation on ‘Online security systems for the Oil and Gas sector’. He spoke about the requirement of having robust cyber security defence in the critical infrastructure sector of our country which include the Oil & Gas sector along with Power & Utilities. The critical infrastructure plays an important role in the economy and hence is of crucial significance. Cyber-attacks impact all the facilities and operations across the value chain which can cause a slowdown in production that would have a domino effect on the loss of income of the organisation. Not only would it cause a breach of confidential data but more importantly it will affect the availability of systems. Off late, the attacks happening are observed to be more on the safety systems of the organisations followed by on production systems, hence jeopardizing human life and the environment.

Further, Mr Sinha spoke on recent security challenges faced by the companies. He mentioned that there has been a steady rise in attacks on the Industrial Control System (ICS) and the Operational Technology (OT) systems primarily focused in the Oil & Gas sector as compared to the other sectors. During covid, it has been observed that companies have prioritised - cyber security by implementing latest security technologies to protect themselves against adversaries, owing to rising digitization and thereon having rising implications of the same. As, the focus today in the Oil & Gas sector is increasing on the adoption of latest digital technologies to get insights and have a better asset control. This helps companies in enhancing exploration, optimizing production, improving safety of installations and developing intelligent infrastructure along with integrated control mechanism. In addition to the same, he highlighted few ways by which organizations can design and transform their security systems.

Mr Sinha then concluded the presentation by speaking about a holistic approach in order to build a cyber secure culture within an organisation followed by conducting a Q&A session and wherein he answered on various queries posted by our participants.

Lastly, Mr. Vivekanand, Director (Finance, Taxation & Legal), FIPI thanked the EY and FIPI team who worked hard to make this event successful. He thanked the attendees for their active and interactive participation during the event.