CIP-012 — Communications between Control Centers

Description

CIP-012 addresses cybersecurity protection for communications between applicable control centers. It focuses on protecting the confidentiality and integrity of certain sensitive communications and the information exchanged over those communications, including applicable external communication paths.

Implications

• Control-center interconnections and operational data exchanges require defined security boundaries, protected channels, and documented responsibilities between communicating entities.
• Encryption, authentication, key management, and monitoring must be implemented without impairing real-time performance or interoperability.
• Dependence on telecommunications providers and shared infrastructure introduces availability and supply-chain risk.
• Failover paths and alternate communications must receive equivalent security consideration.

Common Compensating Controls

• Mutual authentication, strong encryption, certificate lifecycle management, and secure key storage.
• Dedicated or logically isolated circuits, VPNs, MACsec/IPsec where appropriate, and strict routing controls.
• Redundant communication paths using diverse carriers, technologies, and physical routes.
• Integrity monitoring, sequence validation, anomaly detection, protected time synchronization, and alerting.
• Communications inventories, service-level agreements, provider attestations, periodic testing, and documented failover procedures.

Control selection must account for latency, availability, protocol compatibility, and reliability requirements.