North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC)
The following is an excerpt from the NERC CIP program description:
"The Critical Infrastructure Protection program coordinates all of NERC’s efforts to improve physical and cyber-security for the bulk power system of North America as it relates to reliability. These efforts include standards development, compliance enforcement, assessments of risk and preparedness, disseminating critical information via alerts to industry, and raising awareness of key issues. Additionally, the program is home to the Electricity Sector Information Sharing and Analysis Center (or ES-ISAC) and monitors the bulk power system to provide real-time situation awareness leadership and coordination services to the electric industry." †In accordance with NERC CIP Standards, all procedures that support the critical assets and critical cyber systems required for reliable operation of the bulk power system must be documented and all CIP personnel must receive appropriate performance and risk based training.
CIP Standard Version 5: New Training Requirements
NERC has revised the personnel training requirement in the draft fifth version of CIP-004. This updated requirement ensures that all responsible entities perform Role-Based Training for all identified CIP role responsibilities, such as cyber system information management, identifying critical assets, incident recovery planning, Technical Feasibility Exceptions, and access control management.
Role-Based Training must be administered at least annually with strict documentation requirements from NERC. This documentation includes all CIP roles, role responsibilities, and subsequent training modules for any organization’s CIP Program.
WFPA supports documentation improvement and the implementation of CIP Role-Based Training for your organization. Our associates work with your team to identify all CIP roles, establish training guidelines, and develop training modules. WFPA training modules are built to require minimal modification between the current third version standard and implementation of the fourth and fifth version requirement changes.
WFPA: Experienced Consulting for Compliance and Training
WFPA supports policy and procedure documentation improvement, as well as the implementation of CIP Role-Based Training, for your organization through the following services:
> Creating and updating NERC required policy and procedure documentation to improve compliance.
> Facilitating development of process based procedures for your organization built on the current work process within the organization adapted to be compliant with the CIP Standards.
> Identifying and documenting the roles involved in Role-Based Training as outlined in the draft fifth version of the CIP Standards.
> Developing Role-Based Training to meet the new requirements. Web-based or paper-based training is built using the WFPA Instructional Design Methodology.
> Conducting assessments to identify areas of weakness in your current CIP program and improve compliance.
† NERC - North American Electric Reliability Corporation - http://www.nerc.com