By Industry · Public Utilities

GRC where a violation can cost a million dollars a day

Utilities run the critical infrastructure everything else depends on, under some of the only truly mandatory cybersecurity law in North America. NERC CIP carries penalties up to a million dollars per violation per day, and it all has to work across operational technology that was never built for it.

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The landscape

Mandatory by law, complicated by OT

For the North American bulk electric system, NERC CIP is not guidance, it is law, enforced by NERC and FERC with civil penalties reaching a million dollars per violation per day. Pipeline operators answer to TSA security directives that demand much the same controls. Underneath, the IEC 62443 standard defines how to actually secure the industrial systems, the SCADA and control networks, that keep the grid running, and CISA and NIST frame critical-infrastructure risk on top.

NERC CIP TSA Directives IEC 62443 NIST CSF NIST 800-82 CISA CPGs ISO 27001 NIS2
$1M
the maximum civil penalty, per violation per day, for failing to meet NERC CIP, the mandatory cybersecurity standard for North America's bulk electric system.

The hard part is where IT meets OT. NERC CIP tells you what to prove to an auditor; IEC 62443 tells you what it takes to actually be secure. The two overlap heavily but are not the same, and the systems they cover, decades-old control equipment among them, were never designed to be patched, monitored, or audited like corporate IT.

Why it is hard

Compliance and security are not the same thing

A utility can pass a NERC CIP audit and still have real gaps in its control systems, or secure its OT well and still struggle to produce the evidence an auditor demands. Doing both means mapping one set of controls to what regulators require and to what the plant floor actually needs, across IT and OT together.

Managed separately, that is two programs, two piles of evidence, and a dangerous space in between, in an environment where a failure is not just a fine but a risk to the grid itself.

How SimpleRisk fits

One control library, every obligation

SimpleRisk treats critical-infrastructure GRC the way it should be treated: as one connected set of controls that answers to the regulator and secures the systems, mapped once across IT and OT.

  • Map once, satisfy many. Through the Secure Controls Framework, one control maps across NERC CIP, TSA directives, IEC 62443, NIST, and 250-plus frameworks, so you test once and satisfy many at the same time.
  • Bridge compliance and security. Map the same controls to what a NERC auditor requires and to what your OT actually needs, so the two are never out of step.
  • Bring OT and IT into one register. Track risk across control systems and corporate IT together, instead of two disconnected programs.
  • Prove it on demand. Define tests, run audits, and hand a NERC CIP reviewer exactly the evidence it expects, on time.
Compliance in SimpleRisk → Risk Management → Secure Controls Framework →

Answer NERC and secure your OT, from one platform

Start a free trial or book a demo, and see how SimpleRisk maps your controls across every mandate a utility has to meet.

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