Statoil Moves Key IT Tasks from India Back to Norway
Statoil said on Friday it would move its critical information technology (IT) tasks from Indian provider HCL Technologies back to Norway to improve security.
A number of IT-related security incidents in recent years, including one that disrupted oil loading at the Mongstad refinery in 2014, had led the Norwegian energy company to create a task force to assess risks.
As a result of this assessment Statoil decided to strip its most "critical" tasks from provider HCL, to which the company outsources most of its infrastructure IT management, after internal reports identified potential security problems.
"Critical tasks on IT infrastructure should be carried out by internal resources in Statoil," a spokesman for the company said.
Statoil will begin identifying immediately which operations to move back to Norway and implement this "as soon as possible", he added.
Security is in the spotlight at international energy firms after a cyberattack hit A.P. Moller Maerk's operations this week, causing disruptions and an economic impact that the company has yet to gauge fully.
Statoil's decision is not directly linked to recent cyberattacks, but the company is following such incidents closely as it tries to shield its operations, it said.
(Reporting by Lefteris Karagiannopoulos)
