"netForensics was one of the early players in the SIM game and it shows. The product's documentation is by far the best, the agent installation process is virtually flawless, and the depth of the devices supported is substantial. netForensics also scores points for its advanced architecture."
Greg Shipley,
Contributing Editor,
Network Computing
FERC/NERC CIP Compliance
Protecting the Energy and Utility Infrastructure
The day-to-day operations of our bulk power system increasingly rely on cyber assets. So cyber-security throughout our energy and utility infrastructure and facilities is crucial. As these computer and communication networks expand, the potential for cyber attacks increases. Attacks can wreak havoc on the bulk power system, and can even impact several entities across the country simultaneously. To protect these critical power assets, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) established mandatory critical infrastructure protection (CIP) reliability standards that include:
- Establishing policies, plans, and procedures to safeguard physical and electronic access to control systems
- Training personnel on security matters
- Reporting security incidents
- Maintaining preparedness for recovering from a cyber incident
FERC designated the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) to carry out compliance and enforce these mandatory reliability standards. For compliance with the FERC CIP standards, you’ll need to establish a proactive security compliance management program and deploy an automated security information management (SIM) solution.
nFX Solutions for FERC/NERC
netForensics offers a comprehensive, specific, cost-effective approach to meeting FERC/NERC compliance mandates. With nFX One SIM and log management solutions, you can proactively manage risk across your network, systems, applications, databases, and user activities while enabling FERC/NERC compliance.
nFX One solutions leverage your existing technology and tools to identify, assess, and report on security issues. They can collect and analyze data from your corporate firewalls, IDS systems, vulnerability scanners, routers, web servers, databases, and even proprietary applications. They’ll also identify noncompliant systems, broken processes, and unresolved violations. You can count on recognized security best practices, continuously manage risk, and meet compliance—whether you’re a midsize organization on a limited budget or a larger organization with a distributed environment. netForensics offers flexible, scalable solutions for both.
Beyond Log Management
Though log management is important to your FERC/NERC compliance obligations, you’ll need to optimize your event log data using additional functionality. Besides collecting, storing, and reporting on your event logs, you must correlate the data for the highest degree of security insight. nFX One solutions empower you with an added layer of security intelligence featuring proven, patented correlation technology. With nFX One, you can go beyond log management and leverage advanced correlation capabilities. The nFX One correlation function can prevent and mitigate aggressive threats that can put your assets at risk—while also helping you meet FERC/NERC compliance.
netForensics: Protecting the Bulk Power System
The netForensics nFX One suite allows you to manage information security of critical cyber assets, support the bulk power system information security and technology infrastructure, and consequently demonstrate FERC/NERC CIP compliance. Through data collection, log management, real-time monitoring, threat identification, rapid response, and actionable reporting, nFX One enables you to:
- Correlate event data from all your devices and applications
- Monitor and measure the effectiveness of FERC/NERC compliance controls
- Deliver real-time visibility into threats against compliance-related assets
- Identify hard-to-detect stealth threats that other solutions would miss
- Immediately detect and alert you to control and policy violations
- Provide out-of-the-box and customizable FERC/NERC reports and rules
- Securely capture and store event logs for evidence and enforcement
- Provide third-party auditors with the information they need to evaluate compliance
- Decrease the time and resources spent on meeting compliance requirements
nFX Cinxi One provides all sizes and types of organizations with both security visibility and log management in one affordable, yet high-performance solution.
nFX SIM One empowers larger, distributed organizations to transform huge volumes of complex security-related data into understandable, actionable information.
Learn more about protecting SCADA systems and enabling an efficient and comprehensive FERC/NERC CIP Cyber-Security Standards compliance strategy.
White Paper: NERC FERC: <Closing the Cyber-Security Gap in the Bulk Power System>
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