Simplify Your Transition to and Compliance with NERC CIP Version 5
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Simplify Your Transition to and Compliance with NERC CIP Version 5 Tufin Orchestration Suite™ helps covered entities meet explicit network security management requirements for BES Cyber Systems www.tufin.com Executive Summary Over 50 million people in large swaths of the Midwestern and Northeastern sections of the United States as well as the Canadian province of Ontario experienced one of the largest electricity blackouts in the countries' history in August 2003. In response to the outage, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) developed the Urgent Action 1200 standards, followed by the Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) standards that are designed to prevent future outages in the electrical grid traversing the United States, Canada and portions of Mexico. Many of the companies that operate North America's Bulk Electric System (BES) are compelled to comply with the standards. In the U.S., the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) oversees compliance with the standards, often through Regional Authorities. Currently, BES entities must comply with NERC CIP Version 3 (V3) Standards, although mandatory compliance is being superseded by NERC CIP Version 5 (V5). Covered entities have until April 1, 2016 to adopt or transition to V5. This new version of the standards bolsters requirements to categorize and protect important Cyber Assets, which have become a target for cyber terrorism. A recent analysis of U.S. federal energy records by USA TODAY found that some part of the nation's power grid is struck by a cyber or physical attack about once every four days.1 This makes strict adherence to NERC CIP a critical step in protecting North America's power grid. Under NERC CIP V5, covered entities are required to identify and categorize critical Cyber Assets and to regularly perform a risk analysis of those assets. Entities must implement a policy and process for monitoring and changing the configuration of critical assets, and for documenting the changes as an audit trail. Further, entities must establish and control an electronic security perimeter (ESP) that creates a secure zone for Cyber Assets connected to a network, and must utilize secure remote access management. Network ports and services must be tightly controlled to guard against cyber attacks and other security incidents. These are sophisticated requirements that demand automation tools to achieve the objectives. Tufin Orchestration Suite addresses these particular needs and helps covered entities meet the challenges of transitioning from NERC CIP V3 to V5 and complying with the new standards. This white paper outlines the specific aspects of NERC CIP V5 that Tufin can address to protect BES network Cyber Systems. About NERC CIP V5 NERC is committed to protecting the Bulk Power System against cyber security compromises that could lead to misoperation, instability or outages. On November 22, 2013, FERC approved Version 5 of the Critical Infrastructure Protection Cyber Security Standards (CIP V5), which represent significant progress in mitigating cyber risks to the power grid. 1 Steve Reilly, USA TODAY, "Bracing For A Big Power Grid Attack: 'One Is Too Many'," March 24, 2015 Simplify Your Transition to and Compliance with NERC CIP Version 5 2/14 The standards cover cyber security as well as some aspects of physical security. Those standards that are subject to enforcement under CIP V5 include: CIP-002-5.1 Cyber Security — BES Cyber System Categorization CIP-003-5 Cyber Security — Security Management Controls CIP-004-5.1 Cyber Security — Personnel & Training CIP-005-5 Cyber Security — Electronic Security Perimeter(s) CIP-006-5 Cyber Security — Physical Security of BES Cyber Systems CIP-007-5 Cyber Security — System Security Management CIP-008-5 Cyber Security — Incident Reporting and Response Planning CIP-009-5 Cyber Security — Recovery Plans for BES Cyber Systems Cyber Security — Configuration Change Management and CIP-010-1 Vulnerability Assessments CIP-011-1 Cyber Security — Information Protection CIP-014-1 Physical Security Note: The hyperlinks above go to PDF files delivered by NERC. Electric generating facilities have a complex infrastructure that consists of traditional industrial controls as well as computer networking systems that utilize the common Internet Protocol (IP). These systems are generally separate but may have select interface points. For the purpose of this white paper, we are discussing the requirements of the IP / BES network side of the infrastructure. Major Changes in NERC CIP V5 over V3 Two of the major changes in CIP V5 over V3 are the breadth of the covered entities which now must adhere to the standards, and what assets are included in the regulation. For example, in CIP V3, only those generation facilities determined to be Critical Assets by their owner/operators are required to comply with the standards. As a result, many assets have been excluded from regulation and a broad swath of generation facilities were basically exempt from compliance obligations under the CIP V3 standards. By comparison, CIP V5 uses a tiered classification system that brings all Bulk Electric System generating facilities into scope for at least some of the regulations. Consequently, many organizations will be Simplify Your Transition to and Compliance with NERC CIP Version 5 3/14 adopting the NERC CIP standards for the first time, while others will be transitioning from V3 to V5 and broadening the scope of their compliance efforts. What is a Cyber Asset? NERC CIP V5 uses a new approach to identifying Cyber Assets that qualify for protection under the standards. First of all, A fundamental component of NERC defines "BES Cyber Assets" as "those Cyber Assets that, each version of the CIP Reliability if rendered unavailable, degraded, or misused, would Standards is the identification of adversely impact the reliable operation of the BES within 15 Cyber Assets that responsible minutes of the activation or exercise of the compromise." entities must protect under the Furthermore, Cyber Assets now will be grouped into "Cyber CIP Reliability Standards. Systems" which may be comprised of many individual assets. The purpose of this grouping is to facilitate security policies The NERC Glossary defines Cyber and processes that can be applied to the system as a whole; Assets as “programmable electric for example, monitoring for malware across a specific devices, including the hardware, subnet. Cyber Systems are to be assigned a High, Medium or software, and data in those Low Impact Rating based on the characteristics of the facility devices.” A programmable they support. electronic device is a device that has a microprocessor and field- CIP V5 has a new regulation pertaining to systems change updateable firmware, software, management. Covered entities are required to develop and or logic. “Field Updateable” deploy rigorous and structured change management would include devices that have practices. For example, organizations must establish a policy a management port, web for every network change, and every change made must be interface, or any external logged so there is recorded evidence of what was done. interface that would allow the introduction of a firmware, The Challenges of Adopting or Transitioning to software, or logic update by a customer or field-service CIP V5 technician. Where Cyber Assets on the IP network are concerned, there Examples of Cyber Assets are are several challenges in adopting or transitioning to the new servers, workstations, routers, standards. They broadly fall into the areas of grouping assets switches, firewalls, distributed and enforcement of the standards. control system (DCS) controllers, programmable logic controllers, One of the main challenges is to identify and assess the Cyber and other devices involved in the Assets. NERC CIP V5 encourages grouping the assets operation of a generating together, typically by a common function or by a common station. Local Area Network. Grouping assets allows them to have common policies and a single point of security enforcement. Thus, a covered entity has several needs: Collect and maintain a precise inventory of the assets Know where the assets are (i.e., on which subnets of the overall network) Understand what business applications the security devices must communicate with (and thus what policies should be developed and enforced) Many organizations attempt to track this complex information on a spreadsheet, but a manual method can't keep up with the numerous devices and their configurations and Simplify Your Transition to and Compliance with NERC CIP Version 5 4/14 policy changes. Automation is an absolute must in order to attain and then maintain compliance with NERC CIP V5. Policy enforcement across the entire network is another challenge. The NERC CIP V5 standards refer to "electronic security perimeters" for certain Cyber Assets. Basically this is network segmentation, with strict policies set up to protect the designated "NERC zones" that must be isolated from other segments, such as those subnets that allow communication with external networks or with the Internet in general. Covered entities have the following needs pertaining to policy enforcement: Document all of the network segments, including what assets are in each Set and enforce policies that determine what cross network segment communication is allowed and what is absolutely prohibited Understand what happens when changes to devices or policies are made...before they are made (i.e., will a change