How a college town utility maintains OT security and NERC CIP compliance with Industrial Defender.
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A city-run public utility in a midwestern college town serves the energy needs of over 60,000 customers. Though a relatively smaller power provider, the utility must carefully comply with the stringent cybersecurity controls outlined in the North American Electric Reliability Corporation's Critical Infrastructure Protection (NERC CIP) standards.
With Industrial Defender, the utility automated OT security and compliance, minimizing manual site walk-downs and spreadsheet management while ensuring audit-ready NERC CIP reports are always available on demand.
In the heart of a midwestern college town lies a city-run public utility, serving the energy needs of over 60,000 customers. This utility, though a relatively smaller power provider, still must carefully comply with stringent cybersecurity controls outlined in the North American Electric Reliability Corporation's Critical Infrastructure Protection (NERC CIP) standards. These standards are crucial for safeguarding critical infrastructure from cyber threats, yet maintaining and demonstrating compliance poses a significant challenge, particularly for a smaller public utility where teams are overstretched, and resources are limited.
Move beyond manual data collection to a solution that reliably and efficiently maintains and proves NERC CIP compliance.
Eliminate error-prone site walk-downs and spreadsheet management that consume significant time and resources.
Gain a current, comprehensive understanding of all OT assets, their configurations, vulnerabilities, and changes.
The solution came in the form of the Industrial Defender platform, a solution that excels in automating OT security and compliance, particularly for NERC CIP.
The platform offers a comprehensive and current understanding of all OT assets, detailing configurations, vulnerabilities, and changes.
Deep, actionable insights into the OT landscape bolster the utility's vigilance against cybersecurity and operational risks.
Implementing Industrial Defender minimizes the need for manual processes like site walk-downs and spreadsheet management.
Automated data collection ensures important OT security and compliance data is always accurate and accessible, so audit-ready NERC CIP reports can be generated with ease and on demand.
The Industrial Defender platform enables organizations to strengthen cybersecurity across multiple domains.
Together, these capabilities created a unified OT cybersecurity platform — delivering continuous visibility, automated monitoring, and audit-ready compliance across the utility's entire operational environment.
Including workstations, servers, VM host servers, firewalls, switches, and storage arrays.
Automating these efforts, the team has reported an 80% reduction in time spent preparing compliance documentation.
Audit-relevant information about the OT environment can now be retrieved with just a few clicks, enhancing day-to-day operations and confidence in data accuracy.
Industrial Defender has freed up the utility's teams to focus on delivering uninterrupted, safe, and efficient electric service to the community.
Industrial Defender's OT asset management and NERC CIP automation capabilities are directly relevant to public utilities and other critical infrastructure operators facing constrained resources and stringent compliance requirements.
