Metering.com Feb. 25, 2016
This week, global ELASTIC network solutions provider ECI launched a new cybersecurity solution to improve utilities’ operations.
In a statement, the Israel headquartered telecom company said the new cybersecurity solution ‘LightSEC’ will boost its smart grid portfolio ElastiGRID.
ECI claims LightSEC will enhance the safety and reliability of utility infrastructure against Cyber- attacks.
LightSEC is made up of ECI’s three solutions including ECI’s CyberSecurity Suite incorporated optimized CheckPoint network security functions such as SCADA DPI, SCADA anomaly detection, big data cyber analytics as well as an Intrusion Prevention System (IPS), Metering & Smart Energy International has learnt.
In addition, LightSEC comprises ECI’s Mercury NFV solution and LightSEC-V allowing the solution to provide adaptive risk grading that correlates multiple security functions.
Cybersecurity solutions funding
The news comes as cybersecurity is expected to dominate EU utilities’ IT spending in 2016.
This is according to a report released late January by energy markets research company IDC Energy Insights.
The report analysed Western European utilities’ IT investment priorities to improve operations.
IDC said the study sought to track how Western European utilities plan to invest in Enterprise and Line-of-Business (LOB) solutions including asset management, billing, customer care, cybersecurity, meter data management, supply chain management and network automation.
To gather the report, ‘Business Strategy: Utilities IT Investment Priorities for Solutions’, IDC carried out a survey of Western European utilities in 2015.
The report findings reveal that cybersecurity in Western Europe is the highest IT solution area of investment for utilities in 2016 specifically data loss and leakage prevention, mobile security, and cloud security.
The research firm also released a complementary report to understand the benchmark of ICT budgets versus revenues, IT budget spending and IT budget distribution, leading business initiatives to support IT decisions, and top information security priorities among utility enterprises across Western Europe.
According to Gaia Gallotti, IDC Energy Insights Research Manager, “With smart meter deployments picking up again in countries such as France and the UK, Western European utilities will focus their IT solution investment potential on adopting new MDM solutions and, to a lesser extent, on enhancing/upgrading their existing MDM solutions in the next 12 months. Interestingly, this applies to water utilities as well.”