Maintaining compliance with the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) standards is a complex process that can put significant strain on security and compliance teams. Easing this strain and ensuring compliance relies on effective preparation. As the old adage goes, fail to prepare, prepare to fail.
The NERC CIP preparation process is best managed using an automated solution like Fortra’s Tripwire Enterprise or Tripwire State Analyzer. These solutions continuously enforce built-in policies while providing detailed documentation and reporting to simplify auditing.
Now that we better understand NERC CIP and why compliance is important, let’s explore the seven critical stages of audit preparation and how Tripwire’s solutions can help.
For instance, in a recent NERC CIP audit, a regional utility provider used Tripwire’s access control tracking to generate a report that verified only authorized personnel could access critical bulk electric systems (BES).
This quick access verification minimized audit time and helped ensure a successful outcome. Below, we’ll examine each audit preparation stage in detail and how Tripwire can support compliance.
What is NERC CIP?
The NERC CIP standards are requirements designed to ensure effective cybersecurity for critical infrastructure in the electric power industry. They provide a cybersecurity framework to help organizations identify and secure critical assets that, if compromised, would impact the provision of electricity in the North American BES.
The standards apply to the critical infrastructure of all entities contributing to the reliability of BES, including owners, operators, and users of any part of the system. They cover organizations across the entire United States and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Quebec, and Saskatchewan.
Consequences of NERC CIP Non-Compliance
Compliance with NERC CIP is required by law for all relevant entities, and non-compliance can result in severe financial penalties. The maximum penalty in the US is $1,291,894 per violation per day. Relevant entities face at least one audit every five years and can be subject to on-the-spot audits.
However, the consequences of NERC CIP non-compliance go beyond the financial. It’s important not to view NERC CIP compliance as a necessary evil to avoid legal penalties but as a resource for helping to ensure the security of critical infrastructure and business continuity in an increasingly treacherous threat landscape.
Seven Stages of NERC CIP Audit Preparation
Now that we better understand NERC CIP and why compliance is important, let’s explore the seven critical stages of audit preparation and how Tripwire’s solutions can help.
Documentation Review
Documentation review is the first stage in preparing for a NERC CIP audit. Centralizing documents helps organizations ensure that everything is up-to-date and easily accessible to auditors.
Tripwire’s solutions automate the collection and management of compliance documentation, meaning compliance teams don’t have to spend valuable time searching for and updating information. They pull data on ports, services, users, and software and create a ticket every time an asset is changed to inform documentation further.
Inventory of Assets
Asset inventory is a critical component of NERC CIP. Audited organizations must know what assets, including firmware and operating system (OS) versions, are available and be able to provide this information to auditors upon request.
Tripwire’s solutions carry out a monthly automated asset discovery and classification scan so that organizations have a detailed, historical inventory of their assets to offer auditors. Moreover, compliance teams can use Tripwire to generate a report quickly and efficiently when auditors require an on-the-spot asset inventory.
Access Control and Management
NERC CIP audits require organizations to prove that only authorized personnel can access critical systems. Tripwire’s solutions track user access and generate detailed reports to illustrate who has access to what assets.
Incident Response Planning
Maintaining NERC CIP compliance relies on demonstrating to auditors that you can effectively respond to security incidents. Tripwire’s solutions offer real-time incident detection and response capabilities so security teams can respond to threats proactively.
Physical and Cybersecurity Measures
Tripwire monitors every configuration – from out-of-the-box to system configurations and everything in between – and reports on any changes to help security teams ensure all systems remain compliant with NERC CIP standards. Compliance teams can then provide historical and on-the-spot reports demonstrating compliance to auditors.
Continuous Monitoring
By continuously monitoring systems and configurations, Tripwire solutions help organizations quickly detect and remediate deviations from compliance obligations. Tripwire runs weekly monitoring scans and generates reports to facilitate timely corrective actions and provide evidence of NERC CIP compliance.
Post-Audit Review
Once your audit is complete, it’s important to conduct a post-audit review so you can develop remediation plans based on specific findings. Tripwire’s solutions collect and generate reports on post-change data to help security teams remediate issues and understand their post-audit compliance posture.
Choosing the Right Compliance Solution
As noted, organizations looking to streamline the NERC CIP auditing process and ensure compliance can look to one of two solutions: Tripwire Enterprise and Tripwire State Analyzer.
Tripwire Enterprise
Tripwire Enterprise pairs the industry’s leading file integrity monitoring (FIM) solution with security configuration management (SCM) to provide real-time change intelligence and threat detection. For the compliance officer, it delivers proactive system hardening and automated compliance enforcement to reduce audit cycles and associated costs. Key benefits of Tripwire Enterprise include:
- Real-time change detection
- Automated compliance
- Extensive integrations
Tripwire State Analyzer
Tripwire State Analyzer secures your network and ensures compliance with relevant regulations by monitoring your system against pre-established lists of what’s allowed to run. It automatically generates reports to reduce the time needed to prepare for audits and minimizes associated costs by reducing findings within those audits. Key capabilities of Tripwire State Analyzer include:
- Defining records in centralized allowlist configuration files
- Automating the validation of detected system configurations against your allowlist
- Generating detailed system configuration reports
“Don’t leave compliance to chance—contact our team to discuss how Tripwire can make your next audit a success.”
