The National Electric Sector Cybersecurity Organization (or NESCO) is the first public-private partnership of its kind in the electric sector. NESCO serves as a focal point bringing together utilities, federal agencies, regulators, researchers, and academics.  This group, along with domestic and international experts, developers, and users help to focus cybersecurity research and development priorities, to identify and disseminate effective common practices, and organize the collection, analysis and dissemination of infrastructure vulnerabilities and threats.  NESCO works to identify and support efforts to enhance cybersecurity of the electric infrastructure. This project is being partially funded by the Department of Energy.

If you would like to know more about NESCO please take a look at the answers to some of the questions we hear most often.  If you don't find the answers you are looking for or you would like more information please don't hesitate to reach out to us and ask questions.  We like talking about this stuff!  Contact Us!

11/30/2011 - Check out the new NESCO community-based cybersecurity Common Practices Cookbook on the wiki - http://grids.ec/securitycookbook <- if you are not already registered for the wiki, join here.

We have kickstarted this cookbook with a couple recipes and many ideas on where we might spice it up - but we need your help. This is a space to share your own recipes or ones you have found to work in your environments. Please join us in this information-sharing endeavor.

10/31/2011 - NESCO now has a seat at the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC). We have signed a formal Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with the Depart ment of Homeland Security (DHS). Under this CRADA, the two entities will participate in information exchange relating to industry issues and will cooperate in getting relevant and actionable security information out to the sector. This agreement also gives NESCO access to the NCCIC. Statements of work are under development with a target completion date of December 31.

9/1/2011 - EnergySec in its capacity as the National Electric Sector Cybersecurity Organization is excited to unveil the Tactical Analysis Center, an industry-driven situational awareness program.  The Tactical Analysis Center is focused on security issues relevant to the sector and is staffed primarily by volunteer handlers. The Tactical Analysis Center will be the primary outlet for advisories, pass-through alerts, and industry-specific analysis of rapidly developing security information. Details coming soon.

8/29/2011 - We have partnered up with the Open Information Security Foundation (OISF) to work together to make SCADA safer by funding upgrades and improvements to the Digital Bond Quickdraw SCADA Preprocessors for Snort and Suricata. To learn more about or participate in this exciting project see the OSIF website at www.openinfosecfoundation.org

8/12/2011- Are you interested in easing the compliance burden associated with the NERC Technical Feasibility Exception (TFE) process? Then join our TFE Working Group. This group is looking to build solutions to help ease the TFE burdens at asset owners are experiencing, please contact Steve Parker by email to get more information steve@energysec.org.