Drax strengthened the security of its critical energy operations by deploying Darktrace’s Self-Learning AI to detect emerging threats across complex IT and OT environments in real time.
Drax is a leading power infrastructure company, and provides around 7% of the UK’s power and is considered one of the most forward-looking organizations in the energy and utilities
The energy sector faces a rapidly-evolving threat landscape, in which increasingly sophisticated attackers have been successful in scaling network boundaries and infiltrating extremely sensitive operational systems. The stakes of cyber-threats in this field are high, with major implications for the safety and integrity of critical national infrastructure.
Given the wide range of motivations that attackers have, and the looming risk of internal threat, it had become extremely difficult for Drax to pre-empt new attackers and anticipate their methodologies. Drax needed to be able to identify emerging threats, get ahead of up-and-coming attackers and intervene early in order to better protect its critical data and systems.
A self-learning approach to IT/OT security
Drax decided to implement a self-learning approach to cybersecurity, because it needed to be able to respond to fresh threats that had not been previously identified. The company selected Darktrace in order to benefit from a self-learning system that does not require a priori knowledge in order to identify threats, but which instead forms an adaptive understanding of normality and abnormality within its data systems.
The ability to constantly adapt to a rapidly evolving information environment in real time was critical to Drax, as it needed to be able to intervene early in potentially dangerous situations.
After successfully implementing Darktrace / NETWORK, Drax extended the coverage to defending its crucial Industrial Control System (ICS) from attack. By deploying Darktrace / OT alongside Darktrace / NETWORK, Drax gained overall visibility of both IT and OT environments. Darktrace gives Drax the ability to detect previously unidentified threats irrespective of their origin.
Intrusions detected immediately
After deployment, Darktrace has quickly become a fundamental part of Drax's cybersecurity strategy, due to its unique probabilistic approach and ability to detect emerging threats before they have the potential to cause significant damage.
On deploying Darktrace, the company was quickly alerted to potential intrusions within its systems that had already bypassed its other security tools. Following an easy implementation process, it now uses Darktrace to continuously analyze the overall health of its system and to spot irregular activities that have a high probability of being either malicious, dangerous, or non-compliant.
Drax benefits from the most advanced cyber defense technology available today to protect itself against the most insidious attacks that jeopardize its critical infrastructure systems, whether those threats come from inside or outside of its organization.
Key takeaways
Drax gains unified visibility across IT and OT, enabling early detection of emerging threats
Intrusions that bypassed legacy tools are now caught and surfaced in real time
Self-Learning AI continually adapts to protect critical infrastructure from both internal and external attacks
