Siemens Energy has launched a new artificial intelligence (AI)-based industrial cybersecurity service, Managed Detection and Response (MDR), powered by Eos.ii, on Oct. 1 to help small and medium-sized energy companies defend critical infrastructure against cyberattacks.

MDR’s technology platform, Eos.ii, leverages AI and machine learning methodologies to gather and model real-time energy asset intelligence. This allows Siemens Energy’s cybersecurity experts to monitor, detect and uncover attacks before they execute. Armed with actionable insights from MDR’s technology platform, Siemens Energy’s cybersecurity experts implement precise defense measures in the company’s state-of-the-art operational technology-security operations center (OT-SOC) to defend power generation, oil and gas, renewable energy, and transmission and distribution customers.

“As the digital revolution transforms the energy industry, industrial operating environments are becoming increasingly vulnerable to cyberattacks,” Leo Simonovich, head of industrial cybersecurity at Siemens Energy, said. “MDR, powered by Eos.ii, is the first AI-driven cybersecurity monitoring solution to proactively detect and prevent cyberattacks targeting critical infrastructure for all operating environments before attackers strike.”

With the industrial cybersecurity expertise and proprietary detection technologies from Siemens Energy, MDR is able to collect raw information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) data from across an industrial operating environment, and then translate—and contextualize—it in real time.

This provides a unified picture of anomalous behavior for defenders with actionable insights to stop attacks. Siemens Energy’s MDR system goes beyond conventional monitoring by achieving a deeper understanding of how digital systems relate to the real world. With its unified OT and IT data stream, MDR’s Eos.ii technology platform uses AI and digital twin technology to compare billions of real-time data points against a correctly functioning asset. This provides context for Siemens Energy’s analysts to determine not only which events are abnormal, but which are consequential. The technical achievement of unified data streams and machine learning make an unprecedented platform for targeted, in-depth analysis.

Siemens Energy’s MDR solution addresses the energy industry’s need for more sophisticated solutions to put security experts ahead of attackers as each digitally connected energy asset represents a new, possible vulnerability for attackers to strike. Energy companies and utilities are increasingly becoming a prime target for cyberattacks by state and non-state actors launching sophisticated scatter shot, sleeper strike and ransomware attacks against energy and critical infrastructure in broader geo-political or adversarial conflicts.

Last year, the Ponemon Institute and Siemens Energy conducted a joint study surveying global utilities to assess the industry’s readiness to address the growing threat of cyberattacks. The study found that 64% of respondents said that sophisticated attacks are a top challenge and 54% of those surveyed expected an attack on critical infrastructure in the next 12 months. Additionally, 25% of respondents reported being impacted by mega-attacks with expertise developed by nation-state actors.