Atos, a global leader in digital services, and Siemens, a global engineering leader, announced that they have entered into a memorandum of understanding and will leverage their portfolios to help customers establish an integrated first line of defense against cyberattacks. Siemens and Atos work together in the area of cybersecurity for industrial companies, providing customers in the manufacturing and processing industries with comprehensive security services and products.
The Atos and Siemens partnership in the US is part of a global agreement around cybersecurity including common go-to-market and shared research and development efforts to target information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) security for any market.
As utilities increasingly use software to become more efficient and reliable, there is a corresponding need to boost cyberdefenses—going beyond compliance regulations to secure operations. In oil and gas, digitalization brings a convergence of IT and OT connectivity that enables data to travel from the field to the control room to the enterprise network—underscoring the need for a unique set of solutions to address the crossover between IT and OT.
A recent study from the independent Ponemon Institute shows that nearly 70% of US oil and gas cyber managers said their operations have had at least one security compromise in the past year, resulting in the loss of confidential information or OT disruption—highlighting the need for the oil and gas industry to increase its cyberdefenses.