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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 id defenses and infusing AI into safety operations. Whereas the journey just isn’t full, the outcomes, by all accounts, are dramatic – a 35-fold drop in safety occasions, the elimination of malware-related PC reimaging and tens of millions saved by scrapping legacy “equipment hell” {hardware}.
VentureBeat just lately sat down (just about) for this in-depth interview the place Philips particulars how NOV achieved these outcomes with Zscaler’s Zero Belief platform, aggressive id protections and a generative AI “co-worker” for its safety workforce.
He additionally shares how he retains NOV’s board engaged on cyber threat amid a world menace panorama the place 79% of assaults to achieve 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 quite a lot of years in the past – what had been the standout features?
Alex Philips: After we began, we had been a standard castle-and-moat mannequin that wasn’t maintaining. We didn’t know what Zero Belief was, we simply knew that we wanted id and conditional entry on the core of every part. Our journey started by adopting an identity-driven structure on Zscaler’s Zero Belief Change and it modified every part. Our visibility and safety protection dramatically elevated whereas concurrently experiencing a 35x discount within the variety of safety incidents. Earlier than, our workforce was chasing hundreds of malware incidents; now, it’s a tiny fraction of that. We additionally went from reimaging about 100 malware-infected machines every month to just about zero now. That’s saved a substantial quantity of money and time. And because the 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 hundreds of inside purposes, all with out exposing these apps on to the web.
We had 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, diminished latency to essential 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 truly cut back the safety noise by such an unlimited issue?
Philips: An enormous purpose is that our web visitors now goes by way of a Safety Service Edge (SSE) with full SSL inspection, sandboxing, and information loss prevention. Zscaler friends immediately with Microsoft, so Workplace 365 visitors bought sooner and safer – customers stopped attempting to bypass controls as a result of efficiency improved. After being denied SSL inspection with on-prem tools, we lastly bought authorized approval to decrypt SSL visitors because the cloud proxy doesn’t give NOV entry to spy on the info itself. Meaning malware hiding in encrypted streams began getting caught earlier than hitting endpoints. Briefly, we shrunk the assault floor and let good visitors movement freely. Fewer threats in meant fewer alerts total.
John McLeod, NOV’s CISO, concurred that the “outdated community perimeter mannequin doesn’t work in a hybrid world” and that an identity-centric cloud safety stack was wanted. By routing all enterprise visitors by way of cloud safety layers (and even isolating dangerous internet classes through instruments like Zscaler’s Zero Belief Browser), NOV dramatically lower down intrusion makes an attempt. This complete inspection functionality is what enabled NOV to identify and cease threats that beforehand slipped by way of, 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 truly most popular 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 advised my management workforce 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 saved transferring ahead with out lacking a beat.
VB: Identification-based assaults are on the rise – you’ve talked about staggering stats about credential theft. How is NOV fortifying id and entry administration?
Philips: Attackers realize it’s typically simpler to log in with stolen credentials than to drop malware. In reality, 79% of assaults to achieve preliminary entry in 2024 had been malware-free, counting on stolen credentials, AI-driven phishing, and deepfake scams, based on current menace experiences. One in three cloud intrusions final yr concerned legitimate credentials. We’ve tightened id insurance policies to make these techniques tougher.
For instance, we built-in our Zscaler platform with Okta for id and conditional entry checks. Our conditional entry insurance policies confirm gadgets 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 to 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 niche even after disabling a consumer’s account. Are you able to clarify?
Philips: We found that in case you 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 must revoke session tokens to really kick out an intruder. We’re partnering with a startup to create close to real-time token invalidation options for our mostly used assets. Primarily, we wish to make a stolen token ineffective inside seconds. A Zero Belief structure helps as a result of every part is re-authenticated by way of a proxy or id supplier, giving us a single choke level to cancel tokens globally. That approach, 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 in every single place and monitor for irregular entry patterns. Okta, Zscaler, and SentinelOne collectively type an identity-driven safety perimeter the place every login and gadget posture is constantly verified. Even when somebody steals a consumer password, they nonetheless face gadget checks, MFA challenges, conditional entry guidelines, and the danger 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 id 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: We’ve got a comparatively small safety workforce 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 an alternative of manually crafting SQL queries, the AI suggests the following 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 information reveals that including generative AI can cut 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 workers shortly question information. After all, we have now information safety guardrails in place so these AI options don’t leak delicate info.
VB: Cybersecurity is not simply an IT subject. How do you have interaction NOV’s board and executives on cyber threat?
Philips: I made it a precedence to carry our board of administrators alongside on our cyber journey. They don’t want the deep technical trivia, however they do want to know our threat posture. With generative AI exploding, for instance, I briefed them on each the benefits and dangers early on. That schooling helps once I suggest controls to forestall information leaks—there’s already alignment on why it’s needed.
The board views cybersecurity as a core enterprise threat now. They’re briefed on it at each assembly, not simply every year. We’ve even run tabletop workouts with them to point out how an assault would play out, turning summary threats into tangible resolution factors. That results in stronger top-down help.
I make it some extent to consistently reinforce the fact of cyber threat. Even with tens of millions invested in our cybersecurity program, the danger is rarely totally eradicated. It isn’t if we can have an incident, however when.
VB: Any ultimate recommendation, primarily based 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 id and entry. Nobody individual ought to be capable to undermine your safety controls—myself included. Small course of modifications like requiring two folks to vary MFA for an exec or extremely privileged IT workers, 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 workforce’s protection, however you will need to handle the dangers of information leakage or inaccurate fashions. Ensure to merge AI output together with your workforce’s talent to create an AI-infused “brAIn”.
We all know the threats preserve evolving, however with zero belief, robust id safety and now AI on our facet, it helps give us a combating probability.
