If your company is involved in BES (Bulk Electric System) in any capacity, then you have to remain compliant with certain cybersecurity protocols. Otherwise, you would create liabilities for systems that manage utilities across the nation. CIP compliance assessments can be performed to make sure you're compliant. Here are some major aspects that can be looked at by cybersecurity professionals.
Security Controls
If your company has assets that are tied into the BES, then it's paramount that you know how to keep these assets protected from cybersecurity threats. That is where security controls are really helpful to have, but even if they've already been established, their overall effectiveness needs to be assessed.
That's what will happen during a CIP compliance assessment performed by cybersecurity companies that know what requirements are needed. They'll look at all of your security controls and give you an accurate picture of their overall effectiveness and importance. Then you can adjust or add new controls if necessary.
Recovery Plans
When there is a cyberattack or cybersecurity event that affects assets related to the BES, it's very important to have a quick response. That's what recovery plans are for. They should be put together before there's a cybersecurity issue so that your response is immediate and helps restore operations back to normal.
Having a CIP compliance assessment conducted will give you a good idea about the overall strength and thoroughness of your recovery plans. Whatever adjustments need to be made, you can be sure these assessments will help improve your recovery plans so that they're swift and recover as much data as possible.
Incident Reporting
Cyberattacks may be unavoidable, especially if your company is just starting out and thus not that familiar with the correct cybersecurity controls for BES. Still, you want to document a cybersecurity event through incident reporting. Then you will know when these events occur and how to better prepare for them.
Your incident reporting protocols can be examined thanks to CIP compliance assessments. A cybersecurity professional will see if your reporting is thorough and documents the right things. If it doesn't, the professional can show what changes are required so that your company remains compliant.
When BES assets are involved in a company's operations, it is critical to remain CIP compliant. Your company won't struggle with this if it works with a cybersecurity company that is accustomed to performing meaningful CIP compliance assessments.
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