The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has finalized its initial set of Smart Grid cyber security guidelines. Guidelines for Smart Grid Cyber Security (NISTIR7628) include high-level security requirements, a framework for assessing risks, an evaluation of privacy issues in personal residences, and other information for organizations to use as they craft strategies to protect the modernizing power grid from attacks, malicious code, cascading errors, and other threats.
The product of two formal public reviews and the focus of numerous workshops and teleconferences over the past 17 months, the three-volume set of guidelines is intended to facilitate organization-specific smart grid cyber security strategies focused on prevention, detection, response, and recovery. “As we modernize the nation’s electric infrastructure to make it smarter, more efficient, and more capable, we need to we need to make it more secure from end to end,” according to U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke. “These new cyber security guidelines will help government and industry meet this important responsibility.”
“The development of common smart grid standards is a national priority, and these cyber security guidelines are an important step toward that goal,” says U.S Energy Secretary Steven Chu. “If we are to truly modernize our electrical grid, we must have electricity producers, distributors and consumers all speaking the same language and all working together to make our grid more secure. Cyber security is an integral part of the grid.”
The new report was prepared by the Cyber Security Working Group (CSWG) of the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel, a public-private partnership launched by NIST with American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding from the Department of Energy. To access Guidelines for Smart Grid Cyber Security (NISTIR 7628) go to www.csrc.nist.gov/publications/PubsNISTIRs.html#NIST-IR-7628. Also visit www.nist.gov.
