When it comes to cybersecurity, the stakes are incredibly high for EverLine and their critical infrastructure clients. Headquartered in Houston, TX, EverLine operates exclusively in the operational technology (OT) space, managing the critical systems that run facilities like pipelines, terminas, and power generation sites. With a mission to secure essential infrastructure and help safeguard critical assets nationwide, EverLine was created in 2021 to fill a significant market gap where critical infrastructure organizations lack skilled IT and security personnel or the budget for a complex and expensive SOC. This gap makes it challenging to achieve the desired security levels or comply with federal regulations.

Why downtime is not an option for EverLine

There’s no room for instability when it comes to OT. Systems can never be rebooted or shut down because citizens and businesses are relying on that critical infrastructure 24x7 for essentials like electricity, heat, gasoline and water. “EverLine is operating really critical assets that are difficult to secure, which makes ours one of the most complicated technological environments to keep safe and stable,” said Annie McIntyre, Chief Security Officer at EverLine.

Cybersecurity is linked to physical security

Whether motivated by ideology, politics or violence, adversaries are constantly trying to exploit vulnerabilities and destabilize critical infrastructure by altering data, shutting down operations and even modifying physical equipment functions. “In our industry a cyber-attack can rapidly create a devastating physical consequence. There is absolutely no room for error,” said McIntyre. For example, imagine if a malicious actor manipulated the data displayed to a controller, making it appear correct when, in reality, a pipe is becoming over-pressurized, potentially causing an explosion that endangered the public.

Navigating strict compliance and regulatory challenges

As cyberattacks on OT have continued to increase, EverLine’s customers are facing growing pressures from regulatory authorities and cyber insurance providers to strengthen their security protocols and demonstrate visibility across their operations – despite the high costs and often a lack of IT expertise. The TSA issued a directive following a major pipeline incident, requiring organizations to ensure severability, visibility and incident reporting. And recent security rule updates require that rail and pipeline operators develop formalized cyber risk management programs and report cyber incidents within hours.

EverLine’s vision was to develop consultative partnerships with critical infrastructure customers and offer top-quality services through an efficient delivery model. While creating their OT infrastructure from the ground up, McIntyre said it was difficult finding threat detection solutions designed to meet the unique requirements of OT. “Then we discovered Darktrace. First and foremost, we chose Darktrace / OT for monitoring and threat detection because it was purpose built for critical infrastructure. After trying Darktrace within our environment, we felt very confident it was the best solution for our needs.”

Why EverLine chose Darktrace / OT

• Comprehensive asset visibility: Continuously discovers and monitors OT assets across all layers of the Purdue Model, ensuring complete network awareness.
• Proactive security insights: Provides real-time monitoring of OT operations and critical IT infrastructure, guiding security workflows with actionable intelligence.
• AI-Powered risk prioritization: Leverages Self-Learning AI to contextualize OT environments, scoring risks and prioritizing vulnerability mitigation with precision.
• Advanced threat detection & response: Identifies sophisticated attacks, novel TTPs, and insider threats, enabling incident responders to contain attacks in the earliest phases before they threaten operations

Darktrace / OT: Purpose built security for critical infrastructure

“Darktrace enables us to support federal regulations — ensuring real-time monitoring, severability, isolation and detailed forensic reporting on security events” said McIntyre. EverLine operates with the Purdue model, so they have defense in depth and layers of protection. “If we did experience a cyber-attack, we would be able to sever and isolate critical assets, but continue monitoring.”

Complete operational visibility to identify threats in real time

With Darktrace, EverLine could achieve complete visibility into their SOC and into every one of their customers’ environments. “I can’t underscore how critical that is. Without Darktrace, if you do not have solid monitoring, you have no way of knowing an adversary is active until it is too late,” said McIntyre. “It’s in that instance that organizations take drastic measures like shutting down an entire pipeline to deal with a threat. The fallout would be truly epic, an existential threat to our organization,” said McIntyre. “Darktrace limits that risk because if a threat, even an insider threat, took an action, Darktrace technology would quickly identify the unusual behavior and alert us in real time so we could investigate and have an opportunity to neutralize the risk before damage occurs.”

Darktrace’s Self-Learning AI trains on business-specific operational and behavioral data

“Another aspect, and perhaps the most influential, that set Darktrace apart is the Self-Learning AI,” said McIntyre. Unlike traditional tools that rely on pre-programmed rules or signatures, Darktrace uses EverLine’s own operational and behavioral data to learn what is ‘normal’ for their business operations and their customers’ operations. Darktrace provides a real-time alert if it suspects a potential threat, which EverLine can then

investigate and triage. Analysts get immediate access to actionable insights so they can quickly connect the dots to investigate and neutralize the risk. “Darktrace Self-Learning AI has the agility and flexibility to operate in real-world dynamic OT environments.

Gaining full network visibility and control with Darktrace / OT

“After implementing Darktrace, it was like night and day: one day we had limited visibility and the next day we had 100% visibility and control into every aspect of our OT network and our customers’ architectures,” said McIntyre. “We have fortified our operations like Fort Knox with a robust stack of modern security solutions including Darktrace, which gives us eyes on activity 24x7 with our SOC.”

Minimizing risk while ensuring operational continuity

EverLine considers their OT a bubble – everything lives within that bubble – their monitoring and detection with Darktrace, incident response, forensics, SOC analysts, all of it. To ensure compliance and minimize risks, EverLine has segmented different areas of their network and can implement Darktrace as a separate appliance within a client’s physical infrastructure. In the case of an incident, segments can be isolated without affecting other customers and Darktrace can continue monitoring for unusual behavior.

“Theoretically, if our entire IT network disappeared or we needed to sever from the broader Internet, we could continue our core OT functions. Product would still move through our customers’ infrastructure, Darktrace would continue monitoring for anomalous activity, and our analysts would be able to immediately respond and triage potential threats if they needed to,” said McIntyre.

Delivering cost-effective, scalable OT security for customers

One of EverLine’s biggest obstacles is convincing critical infrastructure asset owners that the solution is not out of reach for them. “With Darktrace we can make modern OT security more accessible to all customers,” said McIntyre. “Darktrace delivers exceptional value for your money, combined with our affordable SOC services, put security in reach for customers of any size.”

Scaling securely for the future

EverLine plans to continue to grow their OT business. That may mean expanding their existing location or creating a suite of high availability SOCs. EverLine is building a new Control Center for power operations that will leverage the OT SOC. But McIntyre is confident that “with Darktrace and the technology infrastructure we have in place today, we have the opportunity to scale our business exponentially tomorrow."