The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) has warned that the time to act on securing the US’s offshore oil and natural gas installations is now because they are under “increasing” and “significant risk” of cyberattack.
A report to Congress looked at a network of “more than 1,600 offshore oil and gas facilities,” which the federal watchdog pointed out produce a “significant” amount of America’s domestic oil and gas – and the operational technology (OT) tech that looks after and controls the physical equipment.
The study also warned of a potential ecological (and energy) disaster on par with the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster.
The report adds that in 2015 and 2020 the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) initiated efforts to address cybersecurity risks, but “neither resulted in substantial action.”
