Genesis Energy Secures New Zealand’s Renewable Energy

The energy sector is becoming a primary target of cyberattacks internationally, with an estimated cybercrime cost of 10.5 trillion dollars between 2020 and 2025. Recorded attacks in countries outside New Zealand in recent years led to concerning consequences, including leaving 600 apartment buildings with no heat for two days and idling a power plant for three weeks.

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Genesis Energy acknowledged these modern cybersecurity challenges posed a threat to its own critical infrastructure and decided to take proactive steps towards establishing a more robust security posture.

To learn more about their journey, we sat down with Adam Whitmore, Engineering Manager; Jane Bydder, Engineering Projects General Manager; and Geoff Bard, Network and Infrastructure Admin at Genesis Energy. They spoke to us about why and how they chose to deploy OPSWAT solutions, and how the solutions strengthened the organisation’s security posture.

It [MetaDefender Kiosk] fits in seamlessly because we have a layered security approach to prevent malicious software, malware, getting into the environments… The capabilities that OPSWAT and the kiosks brought to our sites has extended beyond our OT environments.

Sanitised Removable Media and Secure Device Introduction

Data transfers via removable media and granting access to internet-connected laptops to air-gapped OT environments are two main concerns for critical infrastructure facilities. Genesis Energy chose to deploy OPSWAT’s MetaDefender Kiosk and MetaDefender Drive across all of its Power Stations to protect against these two attack vectors.

Genesis Energy deployed MetaDefender Kiosk as an extra layer of protection between OT and IT areas.

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Jane pointed out that MetaDefender Kiosk closed the removable media security gap and increased employees’ confidence about bringing files into their systems. It helped them keep systems updated by using scanned and sanitised removable media.

“Staff engagement has been really positive around the OPSWAT system. People are way more confident about bringing files into their systems and being assured that they will be safe.”

“We’re immensely proud of how this project came together. Working with Genesis, we didn’t just deploy technology, we helped them embed a security capability that genuinely works for their business and operational teams which protects their critical infrastructure for the long term.”

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MetaDefender Drive

With MetaDefender Kiosk deployment establishing a line of defense against removable media threats, the transient devices security gap was yet to be filled.

MetaDefender Drive’s capability to run bare metal scans on transient and stationary devices helped the company’s engineers scan new appliances, such as internet-connected laptops and pre-configured devices, before introducing them into the system.

MetaDefender Drive plays a key role in adding new appliances into our environment, giving us the assurance they’re safe to be introduced.

In addition, Geoff mentioned that MetaDefender Drive is used to scan devices in remote locations, where cybersecurity infrastructure is out of reach, and to overcome server limitations.

MetaDefender Drive helped enforce policies around the supply chain. What we can do now is scan anything physical that comes into our environment. We might get pre-configured servers or workstations from third-party vendors, and we scan them to check they are clean.

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Industry-Leading Technologies to Protect Energy Infrastructure

The effectiveness of OPSWAT’s products is driven by their underlying technologies. Deep CDR™, included with MetaDefender Kiosk, applies a preventative approach to neutralise threats that traditional antivirus solutions miss. It analyses, sanitises, and regenerates files to ensure only safe, clean, and fully functional content reaches your systems.

Deep CDR is a fast way to deconstruct and reconstruct files, with the reconstruction keeping their integration. It can deal with zero-day threats without the need for signatures and heuristics.

Metascan™ Multiscanning scans files with over 30 anti-malware engines that achieve detection rates greater than 99%. Paired with heuristics and machine learning, it detects unknown malware that single antivirus engines often fail to catch.

File-Based Vulnerability Assessment detects known vulnerabilities in more than 20,000 software applications with its patented file-based approach. With 3+ million data points and 30,000 associated CVEs, it can check software for known vulnerabilities before installation, when devices are at rest, and while applications are running.

Future-Proof Protection with Improved Cyber Resilience

The deployment of MetaDefender Kiosk and MetaDefender Drive gave Genesis Energy full control over critical entry points into its OT environments, transforming removable media and transient devices from vulnerabilities into secure, managed pathways. Employees gained the confidence to safely update and transfer files, while engineers could securely validate new devices before they ever touched the operational network. Together, these solutions fortified Genesis Energy’s cyber defences and supported its mission to deliver safe, reliable energy to hundreds of thousands of New Zealanders.

As Jane emphasised, resilience in the energy sector goes beyond reacting to threats; it requires foresight, collaboration, and investment in proven cybersecurity solutions. OPSWAT equips critical infrastructure providers like Genesis Energy with the tools to stay ahead of evolving risks, strengthen national resilience, and ensure operational continuity.

We need to look ahead to the future and make sure that we stay ahead of any threats. We need to learn to collaborate with other industries. We need to fund and prioritize initiatives like OPSWAT. We need to incorporate resilience and redundancy into everything that we do.

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