Cybersecurity is not a new term, and it’s not a buzz word. It’s a very real threat that companies, countries and individuals face every day.

Most companies that have data assets have some sort of cybersecurity in place. Companies that spend millions of dollars on sophisticated subsurface datasets take special care in protecting those assets from competitors who would very much like to get their eyes on those data.

But there’s a missing piece to the puzzle. While the datasets are protected and the algorithms to process them are mostly published, the workfl ow to turn the raw data into an interpretable product is something that might be highly proprietary to a company but also highly vulnerable.

“Not only is the information about a hydrocarbon resource or reservoir becoming important; it’s how you process those data and use what algorithm at what time,” said Earl J. Dodd, supercomputing strategist for Ideas And Machines Inc. and the president and chairman of the board for the Society of HPC Professionals.

Companies that have proprietary workfl ows have a competitive advantage until a company with larger, faster supercomputers “borrows” that workflow, Dodd added. Then the borrower can process the data more quickly.

What’s a company to do? The problem is not insurmountable, Dodd said, but it does need to be addressed, and with legacy systems this can be particularly challenging. Perhaps a larger issue is the emergence of cloud computing.

“Companies are not just going to buy tons of computing assets and let a quarter of them sit idle for a couple of weeks while someone’s doing the interpretation on what just went through processing,” he said. “They’ll want to use existing resources that are not on site, i.e., the cloud. There needs to be the capability to securely burst that workload, which includes workflows, to a cloud provider.”

The Society of HPC Professionals is hoping to get the word out about this potential threat. It is taking several steps, including moving from a 501(c)(6) nonprofit, which is member-supported, to a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, which can raise outside funds to do research and partnerships. “We’ve been asked by technology companies and service companies to move into this direction,” he said.

There also has been interest from some of the major professional societies like the Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG). “The SEG has been very interested in helping us because there are things they’ve done with their SEAM program,” he said, referring to the SEG’s Advanced Modeling Program. “We can bring a different dynamic from a performance and technology perspective, and we would like to apply our knowledge base, whether it’s on cybersecurity, algorithm development, multiscale clusters or cost performance of the HPC cloud.”

Right now the plan is to get the word out about this latest threat. “We don’t really think about the workflow sequence, and that’s what I want to make known and start protecting,” Dodd said.

Comments