Darktrace, the leader in Enterprise Immune System technology, has announced that its flagship customer, the energy company Drax, has won the ‘IT Initiative of the Year’ Award at the 2015 Utility Week Awards, presented at a ceremony in central London yesterday evening.

The Utility Week Awards recognize excellence across the energy and water industries in the UK, rewarding organisations that have achieved outstanding performance in the last year. The judging panel, made up of independent industry experts, recognized Drax’s market-leading approach to cyber security, which is based on new, innovative technology from Darktrace to offer a new level of cyber defence to its industrial and corporate IT systems.

Drax’s leading security team recognized that a fresh approach to cyber security was needed, faced with a fast-evolving threat landscape and increasingly interconnected networks. It decided to deploy Darktrace’s industry-leading Enterprise Immune System, powered by machine learning and mathematics developed at the University of Cambridge, to monitor its IT environment, and subsequently rolled out this self-learning technology to its SCADA systems, with Darktrace’s Industrial Immune System.

“We are delighted to see our groundbreaking work with Darktrace recognized by the industry in these prestigious awards,” said Martin Sloan, Group Head of Security at Drax. “By embracing the innovation of ‘immune system’ security technology, we have seen fundamental improvements to our ability to respond and remediate potential cyber-threats.”

“Darktrace is very proud to work with organisations like Drax, which rapidly recognized the imperative of a new approach to cyber security, and has been consistently committed to improve the visibility and security of not only its IT estate, but also its Industrial Control Systems,” said Nick Trim, Managing Director, EMEA. “The utilities sector at large needs to take action to proactively and pragmatically defend against cyber-threats from within the firewall, and Drax is a shining example of that.”

Click here to see the full list of winners.

About Darktrace

Named Technology Pioneer by The World Economic Forum 2015, Darktrace is one of the world’s leading cyber threat defense companies. Its Enterprise Immune System technology detects previously unidentified threats in real time, powered by machine learning and mathematics developed at the University of Cambridge, which analyze the behavior of every device, user and network within an organization. Some of the world’s largest corporations rely on Darktrace’s self-learning appliance in sectors including energy and utilities, financial services, telecommunications, healthcare, manufacturing, retail and transportation. The company was founded in 2013 by leading machine learning specialists and government intelligence experts, and is headquartered in Cambridge, UK and San Francisco, including offices in Auckland, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, London, Los Angeles, Milan, Mumbai, New York, Paris, Seoul, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo, Toronto and Washington D.C.

About Drax

Drax Group plc is an innovative energy company that owns and operates the UK’s largest power station in Selby, North Yorkshire, typically providing some 8% of the UK’s electricity. A vital strategic asset, the Group is transforming itself into a major biomass fuelled electricity generator through its use of innovative technology and sustainably sourced biomass. The largest decarbonisation project in Europe is underway to provide the UK with cost effective, low carbon, and reliable renewable power.