Electric Security

The federal government will begin enforcing security standards against electric utilities and independent service operators, under a new bill signed into law at the beginning of the month.

Under the new law, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has the authority to establish a national electric reliability organization with the power to oversee and audit reliability standards. Instead of developing its own standards, the FERC plans to adopt those set by the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC), said Ellen Vancko, a spokeswoman for the organization.

NERC's proposed cybersecurity standards reach broadly, touching areas from critical asset accounting to personnel security, and have been the subject of some controversy. As far as government regulation of security standards go, however, there are worse approaches; NERC's standards are the product of a voluntary private-sector initiative, whose participants have been wrestling with the problems of "private-sector critical infrastructure protection" long before the phrase became fashionable.

[Hat tip: DHS Daily Open Source Infrastructure Report]