BP to lock down personal devices over cyber threat

British oil and gas giant BP plans to restrict the actions that employees can take on personal computers in order to combat the rising threat of cyber attacks.

BP outgoing CIO Dana Deasy said that 40% of worldwide cyber attacks are in the energy sector.

"You’re moving from a world where you want to keep the bad guys out, to a reality of what happens if they do get in and what’s the game plan?" Deasy said.

The threat to BP is coming from organised crime networks as well as state-sponsored attacks. The latter is thought to be the real cause for concern.

"[State sponsored attacks] are the ones that we are most concerned about, because the nature of them is that they aren’t necessarily about causing you harm today, or even tomorrow, but some day in the future. Or they don’t even want you to know that they are there," added Deasy.

GlobalSign chief product officer Lila Kee said that BP’s look at its device use policy is a trend that the certificate authority has observed among its energy customers.

"Balancing employee flexibility and productivity against security has never been more topical. As Deasy suggests, it’s not an easy nor black and white decision, and careful risk assessment must be the foundation of PC and BYOD policy decisions," Kee added.

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Image: World headquarters of BP in St James’s, City of Westminster, London. Photo: courtesy of WhisperToMe.