While the oil and gas industry has created more sophisticated countermeasures to protect facilities and prevent feed and product losses, cyber attacks on oil industry facilities have increased in scale and complexity since 2000. In response, governments in the Gulf have strengthened cybersecurity regulations in a bid to prevent attacks and to support businesses in the sector, and the businesses themselves will likely have to take cyber attacks into consideration when planning plants' control systems in future, putting appropriate training and protective measures in place, says Khomeini, former head of the Energy Studies Department at the Opec Secretariat in Vienna.
While the oil and gas industry has created more sophisticated countermeasures to protect facilities and prevent feed and product losses, cyber attacks on oil industry facilities have increased in scale and complexity since 2000. In response, governments in the Gulf have strengthened cybersecurity regulations in a bid to prevent attacks and to support businesses in the sector, and the businesses themselves will likely have to take cyber attacks into consideration when planning plants' control systems in future, putting appropriate training and protective measures in place, says Saadallah Al Fathi, former head of the Energy Studies Department at the Opec Secretariat in Vienna.