NOV CIO fused AI and Zero Belief to slash threats by 35x

Nationwide Oilwell Varco (NOV) is present process a sweeping cybersecurity transformation beneath CIO Alex Philips, embracing a Zero Belief structure, strengthening identification defenses and infusing AI into safety operations. Whereas the journey will not be 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 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 threat amid a worldwide 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.

Under are excerpts of Philips’ latest interview with VentureBeat:

VentureBeat: Alex, NOV went “all in” on Zero Belief numerous years in the past – what have been the standout features?

Alex Philips: After we began, we have 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 identification and conditional entry on the core of every little thing. Our journey started by adopting an identity-driven structure on Zscaler’s Zero Belief Alternate and it modified every little thing. 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 because the answer is cloud-based, Equipment hell is gone, as I prefer to say.

The zero belief strategy 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 reap the benefits of internet-based connectivity vs. legacy costly MPLS. “On common, we elevated velocity by 10–20x, decreased latency to vital 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: A giant cause is that our web site visitors now goes via a Safety Service Edge (SSE) with full SSL inspection, sandboxing, and information loss prevention. Zscaler friends instantly with Microsoft, so Workplace 365 site visitors acquired quicker 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 acquired authorized approval to decrypt SSL site visitors because the cloud proxy doesn’t give NOV entry to spy on the info itself. Which means malware hiding in encrypted streams began getting caught earlier than hitting endpoints. Briefly, we shrunk the assault floor and let good site visitors circulate 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 site visitors via cloud safety layers (and even isolating dangerous net periods by way of 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 via, slashing incident volumes by 35x.

VB: Have been there any unexpected advantages to adopting Zero Belief you didn’t initially anticipate?

Alex Philips: Sure, our customers truly 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 advised my management staff if all 27,500 of our customers wanted to work remotely, our IT methods may deal with it. My management was surprised and our firm saved 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 reality, 79% of assaults to achieve preliminary entry in 2024 have been malware-free, counting on stolen credentials, AI-driven phishing, and deepfake scams, in accordance with latest menace experiences. One in three cloud intrusions final yr concerned legitimate credentials. We’ve tightened identification insurance policies to make these ways tougher.

For instance, we built-in our Zscaler platform with Okta for identification and conditional entry checks. Our conditional entry insurance policies confirm gadgets have our SentinelOne antivirus agent working earlier than granting entry, including an additional posture verify. We’ve additionally drastically restricted who can carry out password or MFA resets. No single admin ought to have the ability 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 if you happen to detect and disable a compromised consumer’s account, the attacker’s session tokens may nonetheless be energetic. It isn’t sufficient to reset passwords; it’s important 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 sources. Basically, we need to make a stolen token ineffective inside seconds. A Zero Belief structure helps as a result of every little thing is re-authenticated via a proxy or identification supplier, giving us a single choke level to cancel tokens globally. That method, even when an attacker grabs a VPN cookie or cloud session, they will’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) virtually in every single place and monitor for irregular entry patterns. Okta, Zscaler, and SentinelOne collectively kind 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 immediate 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 world footprint, so we should work smarter. One strategy is bringing AI “co-workers” into our safety operations middle (SOC). We partnered with SentinelOne and began utilizing their AI safety analyst device—an AI that may write and run queries throughout our logs at machine velocity. It’s been a sport 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 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% quicker utilizing AI assistants. Microsoft’s personal information exhibits 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 rapidly question information. In fact, we have now information safety guardrails in place so these AI options don’t leak delicate info.

VB: Cybersecurity is now not simply an IT situation. How do you interact 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 trivialities, 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 training helps once I suggest controls to stop information leaks—there’s already alignment on why it’s obligatory.

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 continually reinforce the truth of cyber threat. Even with tens of millions invested in our cybersecurity program, the chance is rarely totally eradicated. It’s not if we can have an incident, however when.

VB: Any closing 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 really was a “win, win, win.”

Second, concentrate on the separation of duties in identification and entry. Nobody individual ought to have the ability 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 aspect. A well-implemented AI assistant can multiply your staff’s protection, however you should handle the dangers of information leakage or inaccurate fashions. Ensure that 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 aspect, it helps give us a combating likelihood.