The increasing development of the connected mine with a range of interconnected machines is exposing mine sites increasingly to the risk of security breaches, with attacks potentially causing operational downtime or physical damage.
Complex cybersecurity landscape mining and metals companies
Today’s always-connected world offers a myriad of opportunities for cyber attackers to disrupt countries, organisations, and individuals.
The four main types of threat actors – thieves, hacktivists, terrorists, and other malicious players.
Today, mining and metals companies are plagued by cyberattacks that are advanced, persistent, and highly sophisticated. These can damage or destroy both the operations and global reputation of leading mining companies, and can do so quickly.
Companies manage an array of assets, including infrastructure, applications, managed and unmanaged endpoints, mobile devices, and cloud services, all of which can be attacked.
Our mining technology cybersecurity dashboards track data and information on cybersecurity in mining.
Pandemic impact on companies in cybersecurity in mining and metals
The Covid -19 outbreak has brought major disruption for businesses across all sectors.
It has brought office life around the world to a virtual standstill and led to the mobilisation of a home-working army, which, at short notice, had to be given the tools to work remotely.
Rather than a planned roll-out, with all the necessary cyber safeguards and policies carefully put in place and stress-tested, organisations had to hurriedly buy laptops, set up virtual private networks (VPNs), and send their staff home to learn remote-working on the job, all while remaining cyber-safe.
Other ritical areas include minimising disruption to supply chains, including ensuring credible cloud security measures are in place as greater pressure is placed on accessing data outside the enterprise network.
Security teams must also ensure business continuity, particularly in sectors such as healthcare and grocery retail that are providing critical public services in the battle against Covid-19.
For all sectors, monitoring shadow IT and providing security on cloud IT environments is a necessity.
For organisations, managing cybersecurity is a challenge at the best of times. For cybersecurity companies, it is always an uphill battle to remain just one step behind the attackers.
The Covid-19 outbreak is discussed in our report, focusing on the impact of the virus on leading companies in the security software sector, which impact the cybersecurity companies in mining and metals.
Leaders and challengers for cybersecurity in mining and metals
Cybersecurity players provide products and services to secure systems and applications.
Their coverage ranges from chip-based security to identity management, network, endpoint, cloud, and application security, and services such as managed security, post-breach response, and risk and compliance.
Our cybersecurity value chain’s four pivotal areas are network security, endpoint security, application security, and managed security services.
Below are the leaders and challengers in these areas:
| Leaders | Challengers | |
| Network security | Zscaler, Cisco, Netskope, Fortinet, VMware, Palo Alto Networks | Versa, Juniper Networks, Cato, Perimeter81, Forcepoint |
| Endpoint security | Zscaler, Microsoft, Cybereason, Dell, Cisco, F5 Networks | Palo Alto Networks, Appgate, SentinelOne, Tanium |
| Application security | Synopsys, Veracode, IBM (RedHat), Rapid7, NTT Data, Micro Focus | Contrast Security, Snyk, F5 Networks, Threatmodeler, Checkmarx. |
| Managed security services | Secureworks, Verizon, Accenture, IBM, AT&T, NTT Data | Wipro, Singtel, BAE Systems, BT, Lumen Technologies, Orange |
Cybersecurity influencer activity in the mining sector
GlobalData tracks the mentions of cybersecurity by pre-identified mining sector influencers on Twitter.
This graph indicates the volume of tweets and influencers mentioning cybersecurity during recent months.
Cybersecurity-driven innovation in the mining sector
To best track the emergence and use of cybersecurity in mining, Mining Technology tracks patent filings and grants, as well as companies that hold most patents in the field of cybersecurity.
Number of patents in cybersecurity in the mining sector: past 20 years
Cybersecurity patents tracker in the mining sector monitors the patents filings and grants over the past two decades.
For an in-depth look at patent trends driving cybersecurity companies in mining and metals, our white paper is available for download.
Top holders of patents in cybersecurity in the mining sector: past 20 years
Our GlobalData patent ownership data monitor highlights mining and metals companies that hold most cybersecurity patents in the sector.
Market forecasts for cybersecurity companies in mining
Global security revenues are headed for robust growth in the first half of the 2020s, reaching $198.0bn by 2025.
The strongest growth will be in software, which will record a CAGR of 13% between 2020 and 2025, rising from $52.1bn in 2020 to $96.5bn in 2025.
Over the same period, hardware revenues will increase from $26.5bn to $40.7bn, a CAGR of 10%.
Services will record the smallest CAGR, 5%, rising from $47.9bn in 2020 to $60.7bn in 2025. By 2025, global security revenues will have reached $198bn
Cybersecurity jobs insights in the mining sector
Mining Technology monitors live mining company job postings mentioning cybersecurity or those requiring skills similar in technologies.
Cybersecurity job trends in the mining sector
Jobs postings by mining companies mentioning cybersecurity have increased in the recent past. Cybersecurity jobs tracker in the mining sector looks at jobs posted, closed and active, in the sector.