Improving security of oil & gas infrastructure

The LOGIIC Consortium has announced its formal inception under the auspices of the Automation Federation.

The LOGIIC (Linking the Oil and Gas Industry to Improve Cybersecurity) program is an ongoing collaboration of oil and natural gas companies and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Science and Technology Directorate. LOGIIC was formed to facilitate cooperative research, development, testing, and evaluation procedures to improve cybersecurity in petroleum industry digital control systems. The program undertakes collaborative research and development projects to improve the level of cybersecurity in critical systems of interest to the oil and natural gas sector. The program objective is to promote the interests of the sector while maintaining impartiality, the independence of the participants, and vendor neutrality.

The Automation Federation serves as the LOGIIC host organization and has entered into agreements with the LOGIIC member companies. Member companies contribute financially and technically, provide personnel who meet regularly to define projects of common interest, and provide staff to serve on the LOGIIC Executive Committee. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Science and Technology Directorate has contracted with the scientific research organization SRI International to provide scientific and technical guidance as well as project management for LOGIIC.

“LOGIIC is a model example of how leading industry organizations can team with government in a public-private partnership to ensure the security and safety of the automation systems that are crucial to our critical infrastructures,” said Ted Angevaare of Shell and chair of the LOGIIC Executive Committee.

As its first project under the auspices of The Automation Federation, LOGIIC seeks to evaluate and improve the level of security of Safety Instrumented Systems as these are increasingly integrated with process control systems. These goals are to be achieved by an evaluation process conducted by subject matter experts working closely with system vendors. The results of this project will ultimately benefit not only the members of LOGIIC, but also the oil and gas industry as a whole.

Current members of LOGIIC include BP, Chevron, Shell, Total, and other large oil and gas companies that operate significant global energy infrastructure.