For decades, the oil industry has run on machines built to last. Rugged. Reliable. Designed to operate for decades without failure. But the same systems that kept production moving are now carrying a risk they were never built to face. They were not designed for a world connected by the internet, targeted by ransomware, and pressured by relentless digital threats.
Oil & Gas
Across the GCC, many oil operations still depend on legacy infrastructure. Control systems run on outdated software. Monitoring tools rely on
hard-coded passwords. Remote access systems remain in place from a time when cybersecurity was not even part of the conversation. These are not minor weaknesses. They are open doors, and attackers know exactly where to find them.
We have visited facilities where the engineering is world-class, but cybersecurity is left in the background. Machines worth millions are managed through laptops that have not been updated in years. The reason is almost always the same. Every update feels like a risk to uptime. Every delay in production feels more expensive than the breach that has not happened yet.
The lesson was clear
In one GCC refinery, we saw a control system still running on a decades-old operating system. It was stable, familiar, and central to production, but it had no security updates in over a decade. The team knew the risk but replacing it meant weeks of downtime and millions in lost output. The decision was always to wait. That worked until the day a targeted malware campaign slipped in through an outdated remote access connection. The malware didn’t cause immediate chaos. Instead, it quietly collected system data, network maps, and operational commands. By the time it was detected, the attackers had enough intelligence to disrupt production on demand.
The breach was contained, but the lesson was clear. Legacy systems may be reliable in their function, but in today’s environment, they can also be reliable entry points for cybercriminals.
We do not arrive with judgment or jargon. We sit with OT managers, IT leaders, and risk officers. We listen. We understand that pipelines cannot be shut down simply to install a patch. We also understand that the cost of an incident is never just financial. It is reputational. It is regulatory. And for those responsible, it is deeply personal.
Cyber resilience is not about replacing everything overnight. It is about identifying the highest risks, delivering quick wins where possible, and building layered defences where they are needed most. It is about preparing teams to spot early warning signs and making sure incident response is not a forgotten file but a tested, living plan.
We review legacy control systems and identify risks that can be addressed without disrupting production, creating a clear priority plan for mitigation.
We design secure separations between OT and IT environments, ensuring that a single compromised device cannot cascade into a plant-wide outage.
We work with operational schedules to create secure upgrade paths, balancing uptime with essential security updates.
We build, customise, and test incident response plans with your teams so that when something happens, everyone knows exactly what to do.
We provide continuous monitoring that understands both modern IT systems and legacy OT environments, detecting subtle anomalies that others miss.
We train engineers, operators, and managers to recognise suspicious activity and follow the right escalation process immediately.
When you work with us, you gain more than a cybersecurity service. You gain a strategic sentinel committed to your resilience.
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