DOE Kicks Off Cyber Initiative with NIST to Protect Power Grid
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The Department of Energy has unveiled an initiative that seeks to bolster cybersecurity on the electric grid in cooperation with industry and government, as well as publicly and privately owned utilities.
Spearheaded by the Department’s Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, the project will assemble representatives from across the public and private sectors to develop a cybersecurity risk management process guideline for the electric sector.
“Cybersecurity is vital to the development of a modern electric grid,” said OE Assistant Secretary Patricia A. Hoffman. “We recognize that each utility faces different risks; now, we need to provide them with standard, adaptable solutions to manage those risks.”
George Arnold, NIST’s national coordinator for smart grid interoperability, said effectively managing cybersecurity risk in the electric grid will require utilities to have an integrated approach across missions, business processes and the control systems and information systems that support those processes.
“Placing cybersecurity into the broader organizational context of achieving mission and business success will enable utilities to make strategic risk management decisions,” he added.
The group will craft a risk management process guideline that gives utilities a flexible, fundamental approach to managing cybersecurity risks. That approach entails addressing risks at three levels: organization level, mission/business process level, and information system level.
The initiative comes just days after a report from the Department of Energy inspector general revealed the nation’s power grid remains vulnerable to cyber attack, a result of slow adoption of weak security standards and inadequate federal oversight, The Christian Science Monitor reported.
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