Trustpower boosts cybersecurity, meets NZ voluntary standards

New Zealand energy and telecoms giant Trustpower has taken the government’s voluntary cybersecurity standards to heart, improving its operational visibility, compliance and supplier relationships, according to Nozomi Networks. 

The power, gas, broadband and phone company has deployed Nozomi Networks’ Guardian solution to help with deep asset discovery and boost control over its network. 

It follows Trustpower’s heavy investment in traditional, prevention and firewall-focused security systems, which offered “little to no visibility into what was really happening in the network”, Nozomi Networks said.

“As we continued to expand, digitise and add to our operational environment, this lack of visibility presented a major challenge,” Trustpower Operational Technology Delivery Manager Marty Rickard said.

“We needed a new approach to cut through the noise, gain real insights into our network and ensure we were protected from cyber attacks.”

Guardian has been shown to “capture live traffic”, “see virtually all devices in the network and how they communicated” and provide a “near-complete asset register in minutes”, Nozomi Networks said. 

The solution also offers “automatic real-time notifications of industrial events of interest, including alerts triggered by custom-designed rules and constraints and traffic analysis for current and future investigations”, the supplier added.

Cybersecurity has recently become a higher priority in NZ, with the Government’s Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) launching a resource to help company boards boost their cyber governance. 

“Nozomi Networks has enabled us to meet New Zealand’s Voluntary Cyber Security Standards for Industrial Control Systems (VCSS-OCS),” Trustpower Head of Technology Matt van Deventer said. 

Guardian has also identified anomalies in Trustpower’s third-party supplier network, a common threat point for large organisations, Nozomi Networks said. “Improving mutual security has made the whole supply chain more secure and helped improve third-party relationships,” it added.

“Cybersecurity — like cybercrime and the threat landscape — needs to continually evolve,” Nozomi Networks co-founder and Chief Product Officer Andrea Carcano said. 

“New Zealand businesses need visibility into their networks and awareness of who has access, and to what extent, to ensure they are protected. Advanced OT-IoT visibility and security technology is essential to achieve this. Trustpower recognises that and has now created a better operating environment for its business, customers and third-party suppliers.”

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