Innovation is a driving force in the world of renewable energy. For Northland Power, a global leader in power generation, innovation extends beyond energy production into cybersecurity. With operations spanning onshore and offshore wind, solar, natural gas facilities, and distribution utilities across 45+ locations, securing critical infrastructure without automation was not an option for Northland Power’s seven-person security team.

Northland Power embraced security automation from Swimlane to automate data ingestion across security tooling across its operational technology (OT) environment and enterprise environment and automate the patching of critical IT vulnerabilities. Led by Shawn McBurnie, Head of IT/OT Security Compliance, the team focused on vulnerability management as a high-priority area to automate and improve. 

Read the entire case study here to learn more about how Northland Power quickly reduced its time to patch critical vulnerabilities by 30% with the Swimlane security automation platform.

From Manual to Automated IT Vulnerability Management

Managing vulnerabilities in a global environment is complex. For Northland Power, manually identifying and remediating every vulnerability across its global infrastructure is impractical. Critical systems must run without interruption, leaving little room for slow, manual processes.

Automated vulnerability management is a crucial strategy for maintaining security and compliance at Northland Power. This use case addresses known exploits from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) list of known exploited vulnerabilities (KEVs) as quickly as possible. To avoid overwhelming their lean security team with alerts and manual patching, Northland Power turned to Swimlane’s security automation platform. By doing so, they streamlined security operations to empower their teams to focus on higher-priority tasks. As a result of automating vulnerability management, Northland Power reduced response times and minimized their risk of a breach.

Unlock Limitless Capabilities with Automation

With Swimlane, Northland Power revolutionized its vulnerability management approach. The team integrated Swimlane with their existing tools to build automated workflows to maximize efficiency for detecting and patching critical vulnerabilities. McBurnie said, “One of the things that I always tell the team is that with Swimlane, we’re only limited by our imagination and the capabilities of our other tools. Swimlane has helped us discover new capabilities from existing tools that aren’t known or marketed by those tools.” 

Automation allows them to maximize resources and optimize their security posture. With this in mind, Northland Power is committed to extending its automated vulnerability management and patching use case with Swimlane. McBurnie pointed out, “We expect to automate the remediation of approximately 92% of critical vulnerabilities in our environment with Swimlane. We’ve only started to touch that surface, so expanding automation will be a significant risk reduction measure for us going forward.”

Faster Vulnerability Patching Equals Stronger Security

The positive impact of security automation was clear to McBurnie and his team. McBurnie noted, “We’ve reduced our time to patch critical vulnerabilities by 30% this year.” By addressing vulnerabilities faster, Northland Power minimizes exposure to potential attacks, prevents known exploits from being leveraged, and limits the spread of damage. This efficiency reinforces compliance with industry standards and strengthens stakeholder trust, protecting the company’s reputation.

System of Record for OT Cybersecurity

At Northland Power, Swimlane has become more than just a tool—it’s the system of record for OT cybersecurity. With Swimlane’s automation, Northland Power has turned asset inventory and vulnerability management into proactive, future-focused initiatives. By consolidating data from diverse tools into one comprehensive view, their team gains actionable insights to prioritize essential security actions and maintain compliance with the NIST framework. This streamlined approach frees their analysts from repetitive tasks, empowering them to lead with advanced, resilient security strategies that set a new standard in enterprise cyber risk reduction.