This utility is a major distributor of natural gas in North America and serves millions of residential and commercial customers. This Local Distribution Company (LDC) needed a lightweight local wireless access solution at remote sites to replace old paper recording calibration methods. The technology needed to provide multi-factor authentication and secure access at the gas distribution “gate stations” without any data in-transit or data-at-rest on endpoint and with strict role-based application visibility and control.
Current solutions on the market such as token code based Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), Virtual Private Networks (VPN), jump servers and Application Control with bastion hosts or firewalls required too much IT infrastructure, were too complex and were cost prohibitive for local gate station access in an operational technology environment. The solution needed to be simple and flexible enough to provide comprehensive secure access using multiple protocols and Serial-over-IP.
Architecture with Purdue Model