Senior Engineer, Cyber Security - South Africa

Senior Engineer, Cyber Security - South Africa, will assist in design review for new projects, installation, operation, and support IT/OT security systems and controls to ensure they operate properly and remain secure from outside intrusion. In addition, enhancing the capabilities, lifecycle / obsolescence management of IT/OT assets from cybersecurity perspective and keep the company secure to stay ahead of the curve in everything.

• Maintain compliance with ACWA policies and local regulatory requirements.
• Assist the project teams during design review of IT/OT architecture to make sure that plant design is as per ACWA Power Cybersecurity guidelines (OTS exhibits normally) + plant is designed as per the local legal cybersecurity directives.
• Ensure the implementation of cybersecurity policies, procedures, and standards.
• Implement ACWA Power IT/OT SOP (Standard Operating Procedures) framework across critical systems in the respective cluster.
• Develop and maintain asset log / register for all cybersecurity components (equipment’s) to perform vulnerability assessment and implement risk mitigation actions.
• Develop disaster recovery plans and execute routine disaster recovery drills.
• Develop and implement routine backup (online and offline) management for IT and OT systems.
• Develop obsolescence / life cycle management plan for IT and OT devices with regard to cybersecurity focusing spares availability, patch deployment, etc.
• Lead the IT/OT internal audit for the region and take ownership in closure of all open action items.
• Contribute to Conduct risk assessments and follow up on the status of risks and actions taken in coordination with stakeholders.
• Implementing the cybersecurity awareness and training program and measuring the extent of employees’ commitment to cybersecurity awareness.
• Follow up on cyber security monitoring systems to ensure their stability and availability and submit reports to describe their status.
• Ensuring the integration of all critical systems with the corporate (SIEM)
• Collect cybersecurity events in the information and technology assets of the Cybersecurity Event Logs Management and Monitoring (SIEM) system, analyze the logs, and identify cybersecurity risks.
• Handling cyber security incidents and following up on their closure, and escalation of existing events that exceed a defined service level agreement.
• Continuous evaluation of vulnerabilities and follow-up application of security update packages and settings.
• Arrange and Contribute to the periodic penetration tests on all internal and externally provided services and their technical components to assess the level of cybersecurity.
• Managing Logical Access to Information and Technology Assets by defining cybersecurity requirements for managing access identities and permissions, documenting and implementing them.
• Create and install the required endpoint protection such as anti-virus, firewalls, etc. based on the gaps identified in the analysis conducted by ACWA.
• Ensure that endpoint security solution is implemented across the systems (IT and OT) in the plant and identify inconsistencies.
• Maintain up-to-date signatures on the endpoint security agents (IT and OT).
• Conduct periodic scanning and checksum to ensure the security status (i.e. YARA rules, queries).
• Conduct periodic simulated phasing attacks.
• Evaluate the network security controls, protocols, topologies, and device configurations.
• Analyze log files related to network traffic, firewalls, IDS, IPS, and DNS. Identify any suspicious activity and its effect on the plant data and systems.
• Implement and test the firewalls, IDS, and IPS systems.
• Conduct periodic network security audits.
• Participate in incident response and business continuity management.
• Manage VPN profiles and access.
• Identify the list of network devices managed the Cybersecurity Operations function and maintain an updated asset inventory defining the criticality and ownership.
• Maintain a baseline configuration for the network security assets such as internal/external firewalls, IPS/IDS, NAC systems, anti-DDOS, and VPN and test firewall and IDS/IPS logs against forensics requirements.
• Establish guidelines for encrypting email communications and digitally signing emails and integrate with DLP solution once deployed.
• Schedule periodic configuration reviews to ensure network device configurations follow best practices.
• Document a process for network devices to align with approved security configurations.
• Contribute to the annual budget for cybersecurity as well as the annual budget of the project company and the plant in the respective site.
• Manage and monitor the financial performance against the approved budget.
• Follow up with EPC and the project company during the construction phase to ensure the implementation of cybersecurity requirements in the OTS and O&M agreement.
• Lead the internal and external cybersecurity audits and implement the resolution of observations.
• Contribute to the annual audit of the ISO 27001 ISMS certification.
• Deploy all the requirements of ISO certifications including information security and digital business continuity management.
• Ensure data gathering from all critical IT/OT systems to ACWA Power data lake in coordination with digital operations, cybersecurity, and I&C teams.

Who will fit:

• Bachelor degree holder in IT Engineering or Computer Science
• Working knowledge of electrical installations
• Working knowledge in CSP, PV and Wind technologies is an added advantage
• 5+ years’ experience the IT / Cybersecurity operation