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Nationwide Oilwell Varco (NOV) is present process a sweeping cybersecurity transformation below CIO Alex Philips, embracing a Zero Belief structure, strengthening identification defenses and infusing AI into safety operations. Whereas the journey shouldn’t be full, the outcomes, by all accounts, are dramatic – a 35-fold drop in safety occasions, the elimination of malware-related PC reimaging and hundreds of thousands saved by scrapping legacy “equipment hell” {hardware}.
VentureBeat lately sat down (nearly) for this in-depth interview the place Philips particulars how NOV achieved these outcomes with Zscaler’s Zero Belief platform, aggressive identification protections and a generative AI “co-worker” for its safety staff.
He additionally shares how he retains NOV’s board engaged on cyber danger amid a world menace panorama the place 79% of assaults to realize preliminary entry are malware-free, and adversaries can transfer from breach to interrupt out in as little as 51 seconds.
Beneath are excerpts of Philips’ current interview with VentureBeat:
VentureBeat: Alex, NOV went “all in” on Zero Belief various years in the past – what have been the standout positive factors?
Alex Philips: After we began, we have been a conventional castle-and-moat mannequin that wasn’t maintaining. We didn’t know what Zero Belief was, we simply knew that we wanted identification and conditional entry on the core of all the pieces. Our journey started by adopting an identity-driven structure on Zscaler’s Zero Belief Trade and it modified all the pieces. Our visibility and safety protection dramatically elevated whereas concurrently experiencing a 35x discount within the variety of safety incidents. Earlier than, our staff was chasing 1000’s of malware incidents; now, it’s a tiny fraction of that. We additionally went from reimaging about 100 malware-infected machines every month to nearly zero now. That’s saved a substantial quantity of money and time. And for the reason that resolution is cloud-based, Equipment hell is gone, as I prefer to say.
The zero belief method now offers 27,500 NOV customers and third events policy-based entry to 1000’s of inside purposes, all with out exposing these apps on to the web.
We have been then capable of take an interim step and re-architect our community to make the most of internet-based connectivity vs. legacy costly MPLS. “On common, we elevated velocity by 10–20x, lowered latency to important SaaS apps, and slashed price by over 4x… Annualized financial savings [from network changes] have already achieved over $6.5M,” Philips has famous of the undertaking.
VB: How did shifting to zero belief really scale back the safety noise by such an infinite issue?
Philips: A giant cause is that our web site visitors now goes by a Safety Service Edge (SSE) with full SSL inspection, sandboxing, and knowledge loss prevention. Zscaler friends straight with Microsoft, so Workplace 365 site visitors received sooner and safer – customers stopped making an attempt to bypass controls as a result of efficiency improved. After being denied SSL inspection with on-prem tools, we lastly received authorized approval to decrypt SSL site visitors for the reason that cloud proxy doesn’t give NOV entry to spy on the information itself. Meaning malware hiding in encrypted streams began getting caught earlier than hitting endpoints. Briefly, we shrunk the assault floor and let good site visitors movement freely. Fewer threats in meant fewer alerts total.
John McLeod, NOV’s CISO, concurred that the “previous community perimeter mannequin doesn’t work in a hybrid world” and that an identity-centric cloud safety stack was wanted. By routing all enterprise site visitors by cloud safety layers (and even isolating dangerous internet classes through instruments like Zscaler’s Zero Belief Browser), NOV dramatically reduce down intrusion makes an attempt. This complete inspection functionality is what enabled NOV to identify and cease threats that beforehand slipped by, slashing incident volumes by 35x.
VB: Have been there any unexpected advantages to adopting Zero Belief you didn’t initially count on?
Alex Philips: Sure, our customers really most well-liked the cloud-based Zero Belief expertise over legacy VPN purchasers, so adoption was easy and gave us unprecedented agility for mobility, acquisitions, and even what we prefer to name “Black Swan Occasions”. For instance, when COVID-19 hit, NOV was already ready! I informed my management staff if all 27,500 of our customers wanted to work remotely, our IT methods may deal with it. My management was shocked and our firm stored shifting ahead with out lacking a beat.
VB: Id-based assaults are on the rise – you’ve talked about staggering stats about credential theft. How is NOV fortifying identification and entry administration?
Philips: Attackers understand it’s usually simpler to log in with stolen credentials than to drop malware. In truth, 79% of assaults to realize preliminary entry in 2024 have been malware-free, counting on stolen credentials, AI-driven phishing, and deepfake scams, in line with current menace experiences. One in three cloud intrusions final 12 months concerned legitimate credentials. We’ve tightened identification insurance policies to make these techniques tougher.
For instance, we built-in our Zscaler platform with Okta for identification and conditional entry checks. Our conditional entry insurance policies confirm units have our SentinelOne antivirus agent operating earlier than granting entry, including an additional posture test. We’ve additionally drastically restricted who can carry out password or MFA resets. No single admin ought to be capable of bypass authentication controls alone. This separation of duties prevents an insider or compromised account from merely turning off our protections.
VB: You talked about discovering a spot even after disabling a consumer’s account. Are you able to clarify?
Philips: We found that for those who detect and disable a compromised consumer’s account, the attacker’s session tokens may nonetheless be lively. It isn’t sufficient to reset passwords; you need to revoke session tokens to actually kick out an intruder. We’re partnering with a startup to create close to real-time token invalidation options for our mostly used assets. Basically, we need to make a stolen token ineffective inside seconds. A Zero Belief structure helps as a result of all the pieces is re-authenticated by a proxy or identification supplier, giving us a single choke level to cancel tokens globally. That manner, even when an attacker grabs a VPN cookie or cloud session, they’ll’t transfer laterally as a result of we’ll kill that token quick.
VB: How else are you securing identities at NOV?
Philips: We implement multi-factor authentication (MFA) nearly all over the place and monitor for irregular entry patterns. Okta, Zscaler, and SentinelOne collectively type an identity-driven safety perimeter the place every login and system posture is constantly verified. Even when somebody steals a consumer password, they nonetheless face system checks, MFA challenges, conditional entry guidelines, and the chance of on the spot session revocation if something appears off. Resetting a password isn’t sufficient anymore — we should revoke session tokens immediately to cease lateral motion. That philosophy underpins NOV’s identification menace protection technique.
VB: You’ve additionally been an early adopter of AI in cybersecurity. How is NOV leveraging AI and generative fashions within the SOC?
Philips: Now we have a comparatively small safety staff for our international footprint, so we should work smarter. One method is bringing AI “co-workers” into our safety operations heart (SOC). We partnered with SentinelOne and began utilizing their AI safety analyst software—an AI that may write and run queries throughout our logs at machine velocity. It’s been a recreation changer, permitting analysts to ask questions in plain English and get solutions in seconds. As a substitute of manually crafting SQL queries, the AI suggests the subsequent question and even auto-generates a report, which has dropped our imply time to reply.
We’ve seen success tales the place menace hunts are carried out as much as 80% sooner utilizing AI assistants. Microsoft’s personal knowledge reveals that including generative AI can scale back incident imply time to decision by 30%. Past vendor instruments, we’re additionally experimenting with inside AI bots for operational analytics, utilizing OpenAI foundational AI fashions to assist non-technical employees shortly question knowledge. In fact, we now have knowledge safety guardrails in place so these AI options don’t leak delicate data.
VB: Cybersecurity is now not simply an IT subject. How do you interact NOV’s board and executives on cyber danger?
Philips: I made it a precedence to deliver our board of administrators alongside on our cyber journey. They don’t want the deep technical trivialities, however they do want to know our danger posture. With generative AI exploding, for instance, I briefed them on each the benefits and dangers early on. That training helps after I suggest controls to forestall knowledge leaks—there’s already alignment on why it’s mandatory.
The board views cybersecurity as a core enterprise danger now. They’re briefed on it at each assembly, not simply every year. We’ve even run tabletop workouts with them to indicate how an assault would play out, turning summary threats into tangible choice factors. That results in stronger top-down help.
I make it some extent to continuously reinforce the fact of cyber danger. Even with hundreds of thousands invested in our cybersecurity program, the chance isn’t totally eradicated. It’s not if we may have an incident, however when.
VB: Any last recommendation, based mostly on NOV’s journey, for different CIOs and CISOs on the market?
Philips: First, acknowledge that safety transformation and digital transformation go hand in hand. We couldn’t have moved to the cloud or enabled distant work so successfully with out Zero Belief, and the enterprise price financial savings helped fund safety enhancements. It actually was a “win, win, win.”
Second, give attention to the separation of duties in identification and entry. Nobody individual ought to be capable of undermine your safety controls—myself included. Small course of modifications like requiring two folks to alter MFA for an exec or extremely privileged IT employees, can thwart malicious insiders, errors, and attackers.
Lastly, embrace AI rigorously however proactively. AI is already a actuality on the attacker facet. A well-implemented AI assistant can multiply your staff’s protection, however you need to handle the dangers of knowledge leakage or inaccurate fashions. Ensure to merge AI output together with your staff’s talent to create an AI-infused “brAIn”.
We all know the threats preserve evolving, however with zero belief, robust identification safety and now AI on our facet, it helps give us a preventing probability.
