Templar Shield Completes Groundbreaking OT Vulnerability Response Project for a Large Electric Utility on ServiceNow

Templar Shield Completes Groundbreaking Project for a Large Electric Utility to enable OT Asset Awareness & Vulnerability Management with Enterprise Governance

SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, August 8, 2024 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Templar Shield, a leader in Integrated Risk Management (IRM) and Cybersecurity solutions, proudly announces the successful completion of a pioneering project that integrates Operational Technology (OT) awareness and vulnerability management with enterprise governance systems at a large electric utility. This transformative achievement leverages cutting-edge capabilities from ServiceNow and applies proprietary Templar Shield processes and mechanisms to revolutionize how organizations manage and secure their OT environments.

Challenges Faced
The electric utility sought to improve governance visibility of OT equipment in nearly 200 electric generation facilities, electric substations, Distributed Energy Resources (DER) sites, and control rooms, with their goal being more timely and consistent management of OT equipment lifecycles and product vulnerabilities. By integrating OT asset visibility and vulnerability management into existing governance processes, this project brings clarity and consistency to risk management practices from the C-suite to the substation, and enhances the utility's ability to monitor, assess, and mitigate risks in real-time.

Innovative Solution
In eight months, Templar Shield implemented a tailored solution that leveraged ServiceNow’s OT asset visibility and OT vulnerability management for the electric utility, seamlessly connecting OT inventory and vulnerability data with enterprise-wide governance tools at a six-figure cost. The Templar Shield team integrated the utility's OT security monitoring and threat detection tools with the ServiceNow solution to expand visibility of important security metrics. This gives useful asset and risk management intelligence to budget planners, risk managers, cybersecurity teams, regulatory compliance, and executive teams. This innovative and cost-effective approach provides a unified view of both IT and OT environments, enabling organizations to streamline their maintenance and vulnerability management processes, keeping the view of risk aligned at all levels.

Key Project Highlights
Enhanced Visibility: real-time visibility into OT vulnerabilities for faster identification, automatic remediation task assignment, response to potential threats, and enhanced risk reporting dashboards for actionable intelligence at all levels of the organization.

Streamlined Processes: Automated workflows and centralized management simplify the complex task of collecting relevant data from other enterprise asset management tools to report on OT security within the broader enterprise governance framework.

Improved Risk Management: The rich data in the asset database feeds dashboards and reports to highlight the necessity of logical attention and investments that had previously gone unnoticed. Automated task assignments then bring high-risk conditions to the attention of budget and risk managers. This helps avoid service disruptions and unexpected losses.

Scalability and Flexibility: Leveraging the scalable ServiceNow infrastructure ensures that the solution can adapt to evolving organizational needs, changing security and regulatory control standards, and emerging cyber threats.

Successful Outcome
“This project marks a significant milestone in our mission to bridge the OT and IT divide for critical infrastructure organizations that many residents, businesses, and public agencies depend on,” said Nicholas Friedman, CEO at Templar Shield. “By leveraging the capabilities of our partner, ServiceNow, we’ve created a solution that not only enhances operational efficiency but also fortifies our clients’ security posture against increasingly complex threats.”

The successful completion of this project, which took only eight months from award to Customer acceptance, underscores Templar Shield's commitment to delivering innovative solutions that address the evolving challenges of today’s digital landscape. With this capability, organizations are better equipped to safeguard their critical infrastructure while maintaining compliance with stringent governance requirements.

Future Developments
A future phase that this and other utilities can now consider is the automation of compliance and audit requirements specifically focused on NERC Order 693, and NERC CIP standards. Templar Shield has a NERC 693 and NERC-CIP automation solution prebuilt on the ServiceNow platform that also scales to TSA for natural gas and NEI-08-09 compliance for utilities with nuclear power generation and storage.

Regulatory content packs:
Templar Shield offers NERC CIP, TSA Pipeline Security, and NEI content packs along with annual regulatory intelligence monitoring. These content packs come with the regulatory content, recommended controls and evidence to be collected for audits and prebuilt data export templates, such as the NERC CIP Evidence Request Tool (ERT).

Templar Shield has a senior team of IT and OT security, risk, and identity management professionals who have decades of experience building and running these programs from the customer side. Templar Shield offers multiyear roadmaps that incorporate IT and OT policy lifecycle, control, compliance and audit programs, risk management, identity and access management, vendor risk, and business resiliency management components.

About Templar Shield: Templar Shield is comprised of industry practitioners who are experienced in enabling people, processes, and technology to solve the challenges of risk and security operations. They are a nationally certified MBE Minority Business Enterprise and a ServiceNow Elite Partner focusing on innovation and security, who deliver cutting-edge solutions that help organizations optimize their operations and protect their critical assets.

About ServiceNow: ServiceNow is a top-tier Application Platform as a Service provider known for its robust, scalable, and flexible platform solutions. Their advanced technology supports organizations in developing and managing applications with enhanced efficiency and security.

Maya Levine
Templar Shield, Inc
+1 619-344-2573
[email protected]
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