Case Study

How a Downstream Oil & Gas Giant Secured Remote Access and Cut Complexity – Without Disrupting Operations

Executive Summary

Managing secure remote access across hundreds of users and critical assets is no small task—especially in high-risk environments like an oil & gas refinery. A leading energy company in the Americas needed a seamless, secure, and easy-to-manage access solution to reduce complexity, enhance security, and simplify user experience across its operations.

After wrestling with cumbersome legacy tools and increasing security demands, they turned to Xona for a simplified, centralized, and highly secure approach. In just days, their team deployed Xona, streamlining access control, reducing their attack surface, and ensuring a seamless user experience for their engineers and operators.

The Challenge

As a leader in oil & gas, this company prioritizes security, efficiency, and operational continuity. With hundreds of users requiring secure access to 500+ critical assets, they sought a modern, centralized remote access solution that would allow their small team to effectively manage security without increasing operational overhead.

Their Key Priorities Were:

  • Enhancing Security – Eliminating the risk of insecure user endpoints from connecting critical assets and possibly spreading ransomware and malware.
  • Simplifying Administration – Reducing the complexity of managing access for hundreds of users and assets.
  • Improving User Experience – Eliminating lag, cumbersome access methods, and inefficiencies that slowed down engineering and operations teams.
  • Deploying with Minimal IT Overhead – Finding a solution that could be quickly implemented and managed with minimal disruption.

They selected Xona—a trusted partner in secure remote access for critical infrastructure to achieve these goals.

Industry: Energy

Vertically integrated oil & gas corporation

XONA Platform Deployment

Downstream refinery

XONA Key Benefits

  • Simplifies Remote Access Administration and Operations
  • Centralizes Access Management and Reduces Overall Attack Surface
  • Provides a Seamless and Responsive User Experience

The XONA Solution

To enhance security and streamline remote access, the company selected the Xona Platform, a solution designed specifically for critical infrastructure environments. Xona provided a zero-trust approach, isolating critical assets from insecure user endpoints. This eliminates the risks posed by traditional VPNs and jump servers. Additionally, Xona’s centralized access management simplified user provisioning, monitoring, and termination. With Xona, the company gained a secure, seamless, and highly efficient way to manage remote access to hundreds of critical assets.

Deployment was completed in just a few days, even though the team responsible for implementation was different from the team that participated in the proof of concept and purchase decision. Xona’s pre-configured, plug-and-play design allowed the company to roll out the platform across its environment with minimal IT overhead, ensuring a smooth transition without operational disruption. The ability to assign users to specific devices and enforce continuous authentication further strengthened security while reducing administrative burden.

With protocol isolation preventing direct connections between user endpoints and critical assets, the company significantly reduced its attack surface and enhanced compliance with internal security policies. Engineers and operators now experience a fast, responsive, and user-friendly remote access process, allowing them to work efficiently without the delays and frustrations of previous solutions. By leveraging Xona, the company has established a scalable, future-ready remote access strategy that strengthens both security and operational performance.

THE XONA DIFFERENCE

Simplifies Remote Access Administration and Operations

Xona provides the customer with a simple and secure solution that can be deployed quickly to gain near-instant access to critical systems or applications. It can be set up to be managed by a single person regardless of the number of users and assets across an environment.

Centralizes Access Management and Reduces Overall Attack Surface

Xona’s centralized access control capabilities streamline the process of provisioning, monitoring, and terminating user access. The customer can also isolate critical system protocols to prevent their exposure on untrusted networks and enhance the overall security of their remote access processes.

Provides a Seamless and Responsive User Experience

Xona’s user interface delivers a seamless experience that can be accessed from a simple browser. With zero delay, Xona provides a user experience that’s lightweight and responsive in real-time, enhancing operational efficiency and overall security posture.

Customer Testimonials

“This is one of the better user interfaces I have used. The overwhelming feedback from users is that the experience is light years ahead of our old solution.”
- Senior Applications Engineer, Instrumentation and Process Control
“The built-in CLI interface and documentation made it easy for us to get Xona deployed and configured. Now I can manage access for all our users and assets from a single pane of glass.”
- Instrumentation and Process Control Group Manager
“By completely isolating our industrial protocols from the broader IT network, we've been able to significantly enhance the overall security of our environment. Xona's self-contained architecture gives us the confidence that our critical assets are protected, even as we enable secure remote access for our teams.”
- Instrumentation and Process Control Group Manager
“With hundreds of users and assets to manage, Xona's centralized access control capabilities have been invaluable. We can now easily provision, monitor and terminate access as needed, ensuring tight security and compliance.”
- Senior Applications Engineer, Instrumentation and Process Control

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