From Oil & Gas Monitor:

At the heart of every oil and gas company are industrial control systems (ICS) and other operational technologies (OT) designed to efficiently, reliably, and safely process the extraction, refinement, and distribution of large quantities of fuel needed to keep global economies moving. Initially, OT systems were seen as immune to cyber security threats due to their separation from corporate IT.

However, in today’s hyper connected world, this approach is no longer realistic. In recognition of the cyber threats facing the energy sector, the U.S. Department of Energy issued its cyber security framework implementation guide earlier this year. It is designed to support organizations in the energy sector establish or align existing cyber security risk management programs to meet the objectives of the Cybersecurity Framework released by the National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST) in February 2014.