Biden Administration Unveils New Cybersecurity Strategy, Emphasizes Grid Security
On March 2, 2023, the Biden administration unveiled a new National Cybersecurity Strategy that includes various initiatives to protect U.S. energy infrastructure from attacks. The White House strategy comes on the heels of several high-profile attacks on U.S. substations and at a time when federal regulators have placed increased focus on the security of the U.S. energy grid.
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Directs North American Electric Reliability Corporation to Update Cybersecurity Standards
On January 19, 2023, the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) issued a final rule (RM22-3) (the Rule) directing the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) to develop and submit for approval reliability standards that require internal network security monitoring (INSM) within a trusted Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) networked environment for all high-impact bulk electric system (BES) cyber systems and medium-impact BES cyber systems with external routable connectivity. FERC also directed NERC to study all low-impact BES cyber systems and medium-impact BES cyber systems without external routable connectivity (Other BES). NERC has 15 months to submit its proposed reliability standards for approval and 12 months to submit a report on its study of the Other BES.
