Keeping our secrets, secret

How North Sea Transition Authority transformed password security

The North Sea Transition Authority is a Computing Security Excellence Awards finalist.

We at the North Sea Transition Authority have three missions at the heart of everything we do – supporting the UK’s energy security, accelerating the energy transition and reducing emissions.

Maintaining IT security is crucial to meeting those obligations – our stakeholders, many of them multi-billion-pound global businesses - must be confident that the information they are sharing with us remains confidential.

Unfortunately, our password security was less than ideal. Football teams, birthdays, the names of pet dogs and a wide range of well-intentioned, but massively insecure passwords were leaving our ‘secure’ data at risk.

So, we went to work with OGEL to design a password management approach which secured an increasing number of cloud-based identities.

To start we used National Cybersecurity Centre guidance to assess the situation – and discovered the urgent need for an enterprise password management system which would mitigate identity-related risks.

A rigorous process selected the system that best met our requirements and then we started the process of introducing the new way of working to colleagues.

Monthly awareness sessions explained what we were planning and what colleagues needed to do, and these were supported by the training of Digital Ambassadors and close, collaborative work with OGEL’s Service Desk. Colleagues were helped at every stage to understand what they needed to do and, crucially, helped to do it.

Now, the system’s successful roll-out has bolstered the NSTA’s resilience, helped build even stronger relationships between the NSTA and OGEL and enhance security awareness among staff.

The right solution, implemented in the right way.

Georgi Ivanov

Georgi Ivanov (CISSP, CISM, CBCI, CRISC) is an experienced IT and Cyber security leader with decades of practice driving IT and Information security changes and improvements to meet the everchanging risk landscape. As IT Security Manager at the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA), he supports teams’ business goals with well-informed advice on security considerations and best practices.

With a MSc in Computer Science, Mr. Ivanov has held key IT and Information Security roles. He also co-chairs the OEUK Service Organisations Cyber Security (SOCS) forum where leading IT and Info Sec peers discuss and exchange information on various security topics.

An expert in IT RISK, Cyber and Information security, Mr Ivanov is passionate about leveraging technology and people skills to keep secure the public services.