The national electricity transmission and system operator, Transelectrica, has 2.7 million dollars available to carry out a feasibility study and a pilot project to test and validate hardware and software solutions in order to adopt an efficient model to improve cyber security.

The United States Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) will award a 1.1 million dollar grant for the establishment of a Transelectrica Security Operations Center. Also, for the entire implementation of this project, Fortinet, as a subcontractor, will contribute about 1.6 million dollars, an amount that represents the value of the use of the security systems that the American company will make available for the pilot project, for a year.

The preliminary steps to obtain financing from the USTDA were made, in 2021, by the American company Pythia (as a service provider) together with the American company Fortinet (provider of licenses and security software products), which developed together with Transelectrica SA (as the beneficiary), the documentation substantiating the decision to award the grant.

“We appreciate the active support of American partners in our efforts to strengthen cyber security, a fundamental component of the energy transition. We are convinced that the results of the collaboration will bring considerable added value, both at the level of expertise and especially at the level of processes and efforts to respond to cyber risks in the energy field”, says Gabriel Andronache, president of the Directorate of CNTEE Transelectrica SA.

The establishment of an Operational Security Center at the level of Transelectrica, a strategic company of national interest, will be an essential dynamic response mechanism to cyber threats and will contribute to increasing the company’s security level, preventing and dealing with advanced security systems, potential incidents of cyber security. “This study and this pilot project will support Transelectrica’s efforts to optimize the implementation of innovative solutions specific to its needs,” said Enoh T. Ebong, director of USTDA.