Cyber defence of energy companies as a guarantee of their economic security

Due to the full-scale aggression of Russia against Ukraine and its economic consequences, the issue of ensuring the economic security of energy enterprises has become particularly urgent since the Russian armed aggression has sharply aggravated and changed the entire context of the country’s energy security. This concerns the destruction of large thermal power plants, the occupation of the Zapadnaya NPP, transmission and distribution networks, transformer substations, etc. The enemy acts systematically, combining physical and digital influence. A few days before the massive shelling of the Russian Federation, large-scale cyberattacks are carried out, which significantly complicates the operation of the energy system and harms the economic security of energy enterprises. In the process of research, both general scientific and unique methods will be used: monographic – when presenting the results of the research, scientific abstraction – when substantiating proposals, analysis and synthesis – when studying the cause-and-effect relationship between cyber threats and the economic security of energy enterprises, as well as visual-graphic – when visualizing the dynamics of cyber attacks in the Russian Federation during 2021-2023, economic-statistical – when highlighting statistical data on cyber attacks on energy enterprises, comparative analysis – when comparing the compliance of the norms of the Requirements for cybersecurity of the fuel and energy sector of critical infrastructure and Commission Regulation (EU) 2024/1366, the generalization method – when writing conclusions and proposals. Solving the problem of cyber threats should begin with implementing European legislation to ensure the cyber protection of critical infrastructure enterprises. A list of measures is recommended, which, in practice, will significantly increase the cyber protection of energy enterprises and, therefore, their economic security since the vast majority of cyberattacks are aimed at destabilizing energy supplies and obtaining financial benefits. Keywords: energy market, economic security of enterprises, cyber threats, cyberspace, cyber incidents, cyber-attacks, cyber hygiene.