Case Study

An On-Demand Peaker Plant Solves User Access & Efficiency Challenges using Mobile Devices (Tablets)

The Situation

A subsidiary of one of the world’s largest multinationals, this energy company owns and operates natural gas fired Peaking Power Plants (i.e., peakers). It supplies electricity when renewable energy sources (wind/solar) aren’t generating enough power to meet local demand.

The company needed a frictionless secure user access solution that could enable employees/contractors/vendors to locally and remotely connect to their Peaker Plant’s critical infrastructure (CI) and industrial control systems (ICS) to be monitored and managed.

The Challenge

The Peaker’s are in remote locations with minimal IT support. The solution needed to be simple to deploy and operate, highly secure, and not impede with the availability of any plant assets, plus provide:

  • Support for clientless (i.e., no client applications or browser plug-ins required) mobile devices.
  • A Zero-Trust architecture enabling multifactor authentication (MFA) and a ‘least privilege’ approach to authorization.
  • Compliance with NERC-CIP, NIST 800-207, and TSA SD02C; and a mandated five-minute SLA for plant start-up.

Industry: Utility

Electricity Generation and Distribution

XONA Key Benefits

  • Fast and Easy to Deploy
  • Protocol Isolation and Data Stream Protection protect OT environment.
  • Minimizes attack surface and the introduction of cyber-risk.
  • Zero-Trust Architecture for Authentication/ Authorization
  • Ensures availability of OT/CI Assets
  • Mirrors native asset interface
  • Does not introduce additional Network Complexity
  • Compliant with NERC-CIP, NIST 800-207, TSA SD02C, etc.

THE SOLUTION

XONA’s Critical System Gateway (CSG) met this customer’s needs.

  • It combines a Zero-Trust Architecture for authentication and authorization in a simple to deploy and administer appliance.
  • It meets regulatory compliance and state SLA requirements
  • It’s clientless and agentless deployment allows users the flexibility to use tablets and laptop/desktop computers
  • It enables frictionless access for all types of users

THE RESULT

Secure user access using mobile devices and yubico yubikeys for MFA

Plant workers, contractors, and vendors can easily access Peaker Plant operational technology from a tablet or laptop using secure frictionless (no client software) multi- factor browser-based authentication.

Enabled them to meet their 5 minute SLA for plant start-up times

Plants now have a simple, secure, and cost-effective solution for access, visibility, and control over the Peaker Plants. It includes session monitoring and recording for both cyber effectiveness and training.

Reduction of cyber risks with strong application access protection

Local access to Human Machine Interface (HMI) operational technology is protected with strong multi-factor authentication and with no data-at-rest or in-transit

Peaker Plant Implementation Reference Architecture

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