The National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) has announced the release of NIST Special Publication 1800-32, Securing Distributed Energy Resources: An Example Solution of Industrial Internet of Things Cybersecurity.
Addressing Emerging Cybersecurity Concerns of DERs
The use of small-scale distributed energy resources (DERs) is growing rapidly and transforming the power grid.
In this new, modern power grid, a distribution utility may need to remotely communicate with thousands of DERs and other grid-edge devices—many of which are not owned by them. Any attack that can deny, disrupt, or tamper with DER communications could prevent a utility from performing necessary control actions and could diminish grid resiliency.
The NCCoE practice guide features an example solution that can help organizations:
- Protect and preserve the integrity of digital communications of grid-edge devices and networks
- Capture an immutable record of control actions across DERs
- Support secure edge-to-cloud data flows, visualization, and data sharing
- Remotely monitor utility and nonutility DERs
