Oil, Gas Looks to Hire More Cybersecurity Professionals to Address Risks

While cybersecurity has become an increasing focus of the oil and gas industry, the industry faces a shortage of true cybersecurity resources, and challenges in hiring workers with forensic skills versus traditional IT workers who are experts on incidents, not malware, said Julian Waits, CEO of ThreatTrack. Watts, who works with a number of oil and gas clients, has seen an increase in spear phishing and advanced persistent threats such as fraud at credit cards systems at gas stations or defrauding of employees of the actual entities themselves.

The oil and gas industry is competing for these professionals not only with a number of industries, such as retail and technology, but the U.S. government. Consulting firms like Stroz Friedberg, which work across a number of fields and disciplines, are also working to attend talent as well, said Pinson.

Over the past few years, large, integrated companies have hired chief information security officers (CISO) to develop and implement a corporate cybersecurity strategy.

“That tells you how serious it is,” Senterfit commented.

Smaller to mid-sized oil and gas companies are also starting to put CISO’s in place.

“You take a well-versed chief information security officer who understands cybersecurity, and they can go from company to company in two to three-year hitches and can increase their compensation by a high degree of percentages,” said Jim Guinn, who heads up IT Security, Private and Risk for PwC’s energy sector practice.

“We get phone calls from recruiters looking for folks, and in the oil and gas space, especially in Houston, the skill level in the talent pool is shallow in the sense of available resources.”