Case Studies

W-Industries, based out of Houston, Texas, is a leading provider of instrumentation and control solutions for the oil and gas industry. The company offers pneumatic hydraulic control systems and chemical injection systems, among a host of other specialized services, such as front-end design, system fabrication, field construction, full-service installation and commissioning.

The oil and gas industry faces countless cybersecurity challenges in today’s threat landscape. The IT Director at W-Industries understands the value cyber insurance holds today and how it can be a lifeline for organizations that suffer devastating cyberattacks or data breaches.

However, the rise in cyber-risk has also increased the complexity of obtaining a cyber insurance policy — and insurance companies expect organizations to meet stringent standards to acquire one. One of the main criteria to obtain a cyber insurance policy involves commissioning a network penetration test, which often requires a significant amount of time to carry out successfully and cost-effectively. Even after finding a tester and carrying out the process of identifying vulnerabilities in the IT environment, there is usually a delay in receiving a report of the test. W-Industries also faced problems in the process of manual penetration testing and dealing with a penetration tester. Once the company received the report, it was difficult for many of the non-technical staff members, like the C-Suite, to properly understand what they needed to know to make quick and effective cybersecurity decisions.

Additionally, W-Industries saw many IT directors come and go over the last decade, which inevitably led to challenges in asset management and proper documentation of technical resources.

The IT director, extremely meticulous in his approach to IT security, sought to ensure that W-Industries obtained the ideal policy that satisfied its cyberdefense and business objectives.

To overcome these challenges, the IT Director implemented vPenTest, a robust, automated network penetration testing tool. Unlike manual penetration testing, where a tester may take time to understand the nuances of each organization’s infrastructure, vPenTest takes minutes to install — regardless of the OS — and can start running an internal and external network pentest in no time.

After running its comprehensive assessments, vPenTest uses its powerful automation capabilities to generate highly detailed reports. Each report was easy to understand for everyone, giving the IT Director and his non-technical peers an accurate picture of the security posture across all digital assets.

The quick and comprehensive reports enabled W-Industries to meet the penetration testing requirements of their cyber insurance and secure a policy in a month. The report helped the IT team at W-Industries to easily answer a series of elaborate questions, including whether they host third-party information on-prem, use multifactor authentication and much more. vPenTest made achieving cyber insurance an effortless experience.

Along with securing a cyber insurance policy quickly, W-Industries enjoyed a higher level of cyber resilience with vPenTest. “vPenTest helped us achieve a better security posture over 20,000 of our hosts. Our customers also felt more secure with our company as some of their important data and documentation exists within our infrastructure,” expressed the IT Director.

The results from the platform helped streamline auditing processes and asset management and improved the company’s reputation with its clients. vPenTest has proved to be the perfect solution for W-Industries, offering internal and external network security. The platform, with its flexibility and customizability, significantly improved the company’s risk mitigation capabilities and patch management. They additionally use the reports to develop better firewall standards for internal and customer environments.

The company has further benefited from vPenTest and the assurance it offers. Third-party clients that allow W-Industries to host their content on-prem can trust that it will maintain an excellent security posture via the reports vPenTest generates.