The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has published the draft of its cybersecurity guide aimed at presenting standards, strategies and technologies that can help in securing distributed energy resources and grid-edge devices.
NIST released Tuesday the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence’s Special Publication 1800-32, titled “Securing the Industrial Internet of Things: Cybersecurity for Distributed Energy Resources,” and is seeking public comments until Oct. 21st.
The draft publication offers sample methods on how to monitor and track unusual activities of connected industrial internet of things devices and create an audit trail of IIoT data.
With the increasing need to transform the power grid, the NIST noted that a distribution utility will need to communicate with many DER and grid-edge devices that they do not own.
“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 agency said.
