Securing a European TSO
Defending a regional TSO in Europe from cyber threats
Customer:
A leading European TSO
Customer Requirement:
Cybersecurity protection of critical industrial equipment and controls systems within a highly sensitive operating environment involving the regional transmission of electricity. The solution must also secure the collection, storage, and transfer of data from OT to IT and the cloud, as well as secure connectivity to 3rd party solutions such as those providing real-time holistic monitoring and asset management.
Waterfall’s Unidirectional Solution:
Waterfall’s Unidirectional solutions secure a grid’s industrial cyber perimeter from external threats while providing real-time enterprise visibility. Waterfall’s Unidirectional Security Gateways protect all industrial control systems (IED, Protective Relays, RTUs in Substations, SCADA DMS/EMS) with an impassable physical barrier to external network threats, while enabling enterprise access to real-time production data.
Transmitting Electricity While Containing Remote Cyber Threats
The energy industry has become increasingly prone to cyber attacks. Remote cyber attacks on electric transmission infrastructure can result in severe disruptions to society, as well as create life threatening scenarios to hospitals and urgent care facilities. Repeat disruptions can severely damage economic confidence and hurt a region’s world image.
The challenge
Protecting industrial control systems from external cyber threats without hindering access to real-time operational data, with the end-goal of securing the safe, reliable, and continuous operation of regional electrical transmission.
Waterfall’s solution
A Waterfall Unidirectional Security Gateway was installed between the PI Production Server and the PI Server on the Commercial IT network.
The Unidirectional Security Gateway provides a continuously updated replica of the PI Production server, so that the PI Server on the commercial IT network is only accessing the replica copy of the PI Production server. The actual PI Production server itself has no direct contact with the commercial IT network and data only flows out of the PI Production Server.
Results & benefits
- 100% Security: With Unidirectional Security Gateways, the PI Production Server is now physically protected from any threats emanating from the regular IT network or the cloud.
- 100% Real-time Data Visibility: The commercial IT network continues to operate as if nothing has changed. Instead of accessing servers on the critical operational network, users on the commercial IT network now access real-time data from replicated servers, with all the informational and analytical requirements.
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