Digitization, Cybersecurity and Risk Management in the Oil and Gas Sector in the post COVID world: A Systematic Literature Review

Cybersecurity is inextricably linked to digitization. With the advent of digitalization, cybercriminals are now targeting nations' critical infrastructure, including oil and gas pipelines, increasing the complexity of the cyber threat landscape. The recent high-profile incidents demonstrate the rapidly evolving and intensifying threat landscape. Throughout the past decade, academics and practitioners have worked to digitize the oil and gas industry to make it more efficient, sustainable, and cost-effective. However, the process of digitization left cybersecurity largely unaddressed. Moreover, traditional management methods are still being used and managerial progress is slow. Therefore, digitalization, risk management, and cybersecurity must be thoroughly understood by oil and gas producers in order to safeguard themselves from stealthy adversaries. The purpose of this paper is to examine the progress of smart factories and cyber risk management practices as they were implemented through different industrialization eras and to identify the gaps in these processes. In this study, four databases (AAPG, ProQuest, Web of Science and SCOPUS) were used to review the petroleum industry's literature. A comprehensive research process resulted in a shortlist of 56 papers. This paper discusses digitization models and tries to integrate the literature on digitalization, cybersecurity, and risk management in the petroleum industry. Digitization has overtaken cybersecurity management in the past, as it responds to cyber-attacks after they occur. In the oil and gas industry, this knowledge gap poses a serious challenge due to billions of dollars at stake. As digitization programs have evolved, cybersecurity has become a vital component, and recently, new models have included cybersecurity and risk management as one of the essential elements of digital frameworks. However, much remains to be explored and studied at the project level since these models need to be validated and updated further.