Owl Computing Technologies, the provider of deterministic data diode network cybersecurity solutions, announced that the OPDS-1000 has been selected by a major multinational oil and gas company to help protect oil and gas exploration equipment in the field.

The Owl OPDS data diode product line has long been used to defend and protect the plants and refineries used in the production of oil and gas products. The OPDS utilizes one-way-only data transfers to protect the plants from cyberthreats while facilitating the availability of production information, alarms, events, files and historian data to end-users outside of the plant.

While there are a number of existing use cases for securing oil and gas plants and refineries, protecting the exploration networks and equipment represents a natural expansion of the use of data diode cybersecurity within the industry. This expansion brings cybersecurity protection out of the plant and into the field; closer to the drilling rigs, offshore platforms and pipelines that are used in the exploration and delivery of oil and gas products to the plants.

"Safety and cybersecurity concerns don't end at the edge of the plant," noted Mike Timan, Director of Sales at Owl. "The exploration part of this industry requires the same due diligence to ensure safe and reliable operations."

In order to ensure the product met their demanding standards, the OPDS-1000 was subjected to a series of tests over a 90 day period. A range of many different protocols and data transfer types (PI historian, OPC, files, syslog messages, remote screen view) were all tested to ensure compatibility with the security architecture. In the end, the OPDS-1000 passed all of the tests, and performed well beyond the requirements set forth by the company.

"This selection emphasizes the value proposition that the Owl products offer," shared Dr. Ronald Mraz, President and CEO of Owl. "Our energy customers are finding extraordinary value from our complete range of products. Owl continues to lead the market in cost-effective, scalable cybersecurity solutions ideal for securing individual devices all the way up to entire plants and refineries."