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Urenco Neutralizes Removable Media and Transient…
Nuclear Energy | Customer Stories
Urenco Neutralizes Removable Media and Transient Device Threats for Their Nuclear Operations with OPSWAT
By Amr Abdou & Vivien Vereczki
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About the Company: Urenco is a world-leading provider of uranium enrichment services, supplying nuclear fuel to electric utilities worldwide for reliable low-carbon baseload power. The company operates state-of-the-art centrifuge enrichment facilities globally.
Beyond enrichment, Urenco continues to invest in innovation by supporting the future nuclear fuel cycle, including stable isotopes for medical and industrial applications and advanced fuels to support emerging reactor technologies. Through these activities, Urenco plays a central role in secure, reliable, and responsible nuclear supply chains that support the global energy transition.
What's the Story? We spoke to Dan Mosca, Head of OT Cyber Security and Cyber Assurance at Urenco, who walked us through Urenco’s needs and how OPSWAT’s solution helped them modernize their cybersecurity operations and improve the company’s security posture.
Gaps in Removable Media Security Threaten Business Operation
Data is key to Urenco’s business. Data and system files are required throughout Urenco's network tiers and high-risk zones. These files are required for operational, security and critical tasks and in many cases require an airgap. Isolation is a critical safety control in high-consequence nuclear environments. It is essential for maintaining operational integrity and protecting people, assets and the environment.
In our estate, removable media and transient devices are unavoidable conduits between secure and less-trusted domains in order to perform updates and diagnostics.
Dan Mosca
Head of OT Cyber Security and Cyber Assurance at Urenco
Dan described how Urenco had previously implemented multiple manual checks and traditional procedures (people and paperwork) to meet their security protocols to protect their environment.
Dan went on to explain there were 5 main concerns that needed addressing:
File Security
Malicious files can covertly infiltrate nuclear facilities and undermine secure operations. Adding to this is supply-chain risks, such as tampered software, altered firmware, and corrupted third-party data further increasing exposure to cyber infiltration and potential sabotage.
Removable Media Problems
As history has shown, USB drives and SD Cards can introduce malware, enable unauthorised data extraction, and bypass existing network security safeguards. They create auditability challenges and risk the integrity of content on media.
Transient Device Risks
Laptops, maintenance devices, and contractor systems pose significant risk as they can introduce threats, unverified configurations, or hidden access paths when connected to secure networks.
Operational Processes
Each facility operated slightly differently. Multiple manual checks, different vendors and legacy procedures made it hard to scale and maintain quality and compliance. Staff often had to physically scan and walk media across expansive facilities multiple times, adding delays, creating operational fatigue, and increasing the likelihood of human error. These challenges underscored the organisation’s need to move toward a standardised solution that could be applied seamlessly across all sites.
Manual release control of files to the plants ensures outbreak prevention but further adds to the burden and increases the risk of mistakes in critical security and safety processes.
Nuclear Regulation
Compliance with strict regulatory requirements is a core driver to ensure operational and cyber safeguards are in place around file security and removable media protection. In the nuclear sector this goes beyond regulation, there is a moral and safety obligation to maintain the highest levels of security, as even minor disruption or deviation can have significant safety, environmental, and national-security consequences.
Strengthening Global Controls at Urenco
By deploying the integrated OPSWAT platform across all global facilities, Urenco ensured every file entering the nuclear environment is subject to zero-trust inspection workflows. Regardless of source or entry point; removable media, transient devices, onsite staff, or external third-party, all files are processed through multi-layered defence controls to detect known and unknown threats targeting their environment.
Urenco required greater Control, Security and Visibility into files as they cross all Urenco's boundaries. We needed to modernize and simplify our procedures and orchestrate many of the processes that are currently in place.
Dan Mosca
Head of OT Cyber Security and Cyber Assurance at Urenco
This was achieved by implementing MetaDefender Kiosk (as integrated sheep dips) and MetaDefender Drives to established checkpoints for scanning removable media and transient devices before they enter the environment.
Each solution leverages Multiscanning with multiple anti-malware engines, full archive inspection and extraction, Deep CDR (Content Disarm and Reconstruction), Country-of-origin checks, File vulnerability and Intelligent reputation services.
This multi-layered approach enforces consistent file security standards at the performance level that Urenco demanded.
Everyone's job is hard enough as it is without spending half an hour waiting for your USB drive to scan. But OPSWAT doesn't do that, even with multiple engines, the powerful kit that sits behind keeps that efficiency flow.
Dan Mosca
Head of OT Cyber Security and Cyber Assurance at Urenco
Dan emphasised that MetaDefender Kiosk delivers quick, reliable verification of all removable media, closing a significant security gap around USB devices.
With the MetaDefender Validation Endpoint, Urenco eliminated trust-based assumptions by ensuring only approved encrypted USBs and clean, scanned, unaltered files are allowed on critical endpoints.
Dan Mosca
Head of OT Cyber Security and Cyber Assurance at Urenco
He went on to highlight the success of Urenco’s MetaDefender Drive deployment, describing it as a “supply chain assurance tool” used to scan vendor laptops before they are granted access.
The OPSWAT solutions deliver orchestrated, and flexible scanning through both free-standing and mobile kiosk formats, fitting seamlessly into Urenco’s business and security workflows.
Key capabilities include:
Centralized management for consistent deployment and control
Flexible kiosk formats that adapt to operational requirements
Streamlined auditing and visibility across all environments
Easy implementation with minimal training required
Reduced onboarding time for new users and teams
Investing a few minutes in scanning significantly reduces the risk of serious system issues. The short scanning time is a small commitment compared to the weeks that could be spent recovering from a major outage.
Dan Mosca
Head of OT Cyber Security and Cyber Assurance at Urenco
Expanding the Strategic Partnership
Urenco is expanding its investment with OPSWAT, including the MetaDefender Managed File Transfer (MFT) solution, to drive efficiency and lower operational risks in the users’ daily tasks.
Files will be ingested from USBs, Internal file transfers and third-party uploads to MFT where they are continuously scanned for threats and any suspicious files detonated within the solution’s inline sandbox capability.
Additional technical controls such as release management and supervisor approval will ensure outbreak prevention before file access is granted or transferred securely across domains.
This solution will function as a secure global file exchange platform for both internal teams and external partners, allowing security to enable the business and enhance productivity.
Our partnership with OPSWAT has transformed how we secure and manage files across our global nuclear operations, giving us the control, visibility, and consistency we need. We look forward to seeing where this relationship takes us and how it will continue to strengthen our collaboration.
Dan Mosca
Head of OT Cyber Security and Cyber Assurance at Urenco
Driven by a mission to protect the world’s critical infrastructure, OPSWAT’s integrated solutions protect sensitive IT and OT environments from cyberattacks and ensure operational continuity and aid regulatory compliance.
To learn more about these solutions and how they can secure your critical infrastructure networks, get in touch with an expert today.
