Surveillance specialist Senstar has identified three security trends affecting the oil and gas sector in 2023；ongoing conflicts and physical threats, new artificial intelligence-enhanced technologies, and remaining vigilant against cybersecurity threats.

“The conflict , regional instabilities, and the potential for geopolitical or ecological-based terrorism continues to pose substantial threats to the physical security of oil and gas infrastructure and its personnel,” Senstar Product Manager Stewart Dewar told Rigzone.

“One specific area of focus in 2023 and beyond is the physical security of LNG infrastructure, including plants, export terminals, and regasification facilities. The strategic significance of LNG infrastructure cannot be overstated - in many jurisdictions, physical security systems must be fully certificated before operations can even start, making LNG facilities high-value targets with substantial security requirements,” he continued.

To mitigate these risks, oil and gas companies are devoting substantial resources to improving their ability to detect physical security threats as they occur, maintain situational awareness via improved remote monitoring, and reduce reaction times of security forces, Dewar noted.

“For buried pipelines, this means the deployment of long-range fiber optic sensors that can locate and classify disturbances to within a few feet or meters and relay this information to central monitoring centers,” he said.

“For oil and gas facilities, a new generation of perimeter intrusion sensors, low-cost thermal cameras, and AI-powered video analytics provide security personnel with improved situational awareness, empowering them to take quick and effective action as situations develop,” he added.

AI Tech, Cybersecurity

Dewar also highlighted that media stories involving new AI technologies received “substantial attention” in 2022 and said this trend will continue this year.

“For the oil and gas industry, AI-powered deep learning has the potential to revolutionize all aspects of decision making based on data, from geological surveys to market forecasts to intruder detection,” he said.

“At its heart, AI is about adding experiential intelligence to decisions being made based on training from large datasets. For physical security applications, AI-enhanced intelligence will result in security and video surveillance systems making better decisions about what is and is not a threat, avoiding the distractions associated with false positive results,” he added.

“Given their potentially game-changing benefits, AI-enabled applications will continue to make in-roads in the oil and gas industry, especially as applications mature and become easier to deploy,” Dewar continued.

While the physical security of oil and gas infrastructure is a top concern, so too is cybersecurity, Dewar told Rigzone.

“In fact, as separate systems become increasingly integrated, to enhance capabilities and streamline operations, the separation between physical and cyber realms is quickly dissolving,” he said.

“Malicious actors, particularly on the state-sponsored level, can exploit cybersecurity weaknesses to disrupt operations, steal intellectual property, and hold organizations hostage to ransom demands,” he added.

“At an organizational level, we can expect a continued focus on comprehensive cybersecurity audits and the implementation of best practices, while on a product level, an increased focus on reducing attack vectors, addressing vulnerabilities, and implementing network intrusion detection software will be prioritized,” Dewar went on to state.