[Federal Register Volume 84, Number 195 (Tuesday, October 8, 2019)]
[Notices]
[Pages 53683-53684]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2019-21852]


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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

National Institute of Standards and Technology

[Docket No.: 190924-0035]


National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) Securing the 
Industrial Internet of Things for the Energy Sector

AGENCY: National Institute of Standards and Technology, Department of 
Commerce.

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) 
invites organizations to provide products and technical expertise to 
support and demonstrate security platforms for Securing the Industrial 
Internet of Things (IIoT) for the energy sector use case. This notice 
is the initial step for the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence 
(NCCoE) in collaborating with technology companies to address 
cybersecurity challenges identified under the energy sector program. 
Participation in the use case is open to all interested organizations.

DATES: Collaborative activities will commence as soon as enough 
completed and signed letters of interest have been returned to address 
all the necessary components and capabilities, but no earlier than 
November 7, 2019.

ADDRESSES: The NCCoE is located at 9700 Great Seneca Highway, 
Rockville, MD 20850. Letters of interest must be submitted to 
[email protected] or via hardcopy to National Institute of 
Standards and Technology, NCCoE; 9700 Great Seneca Highway, Rockville, 
MD 20850. Organizations whose letters of interest are accepted in 
accordance with the process set forth in the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION 
section of this notice will be asked to sign a consortium Cooperative 
Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with NIST. An NCCoE 
consortium CRADA template can be found at: https://nccoe.nist.gov/node/138.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Jim McCarthy via email to 
[email protected]; by telephone 301-975-0228; or by mail to 
National Institute of Standards and Technology, NCCoE; 9700 Great 
Seneca Highway, Rockville, MD 20850. Additional details about the 
energy sector program are available at https://www.nccoe.nist.gov/node/4741.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Interested parties must contact NIST to 
request a letter of interest template to be completed and submitted to 
NIST. Letters of interest will be accepted on a first come, first 
served basis. When the use case has been completed, NIST will post a 
notice on the NCCoE energy sector program website at https://www.nccoe.nist.gov/node/4741 announcing the completion of the use case 
and informing the public that it will no longer accept letters of 
interest for this use case.
    Background: The NCCoE, part of NIST, is a public-private 
collaboration for accelerating the widespread adoption of integrated 
cybersecurity tools and technologies. The NCCoE brings together experts 
from industry, government, and academia under one roof to develop 
practical, interoperable cybersecurity approaches that address the 
real-world needs of complex Information Technology (IT) systems. By 
accelerating dissemination and use of these integrated tools and 
technologies for protecting IT assets, the NCCoE will enhance trust in 
U.S. IT communications, data, and storage systems; reduce risk for 
companies and individuals using IT systems; and encourage development 
of innovative, job-creating cybersecurity products and services.
    Process: NIST is soliciting responses from all sources of relevant 
cybersecurity and infrastructure capabilities (see below) to enter into 
a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) to provide 
products and technical expertise to support and demonstrate security 
platforms for the Securing the IIoT for the energy sector use case. The 
full use case can be viewed at: https://www.nccoe.nist.gov/node/4741.
    Interested parties should contact NIST using the information 
provided in the FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT section of this notice. 
NIST will then provide each interested party with a letter of interest 
template, which the party must complete, certify that it is accurate, 
and submit to NIST. NIST will contact interested parties if there are 
questions regarding the responsiveness of the letters of interest to 
the use case objective or requirements. NIST will select participants 
who have submitted complete letters of interest on a first come, first 
served basis up to the number of participants necessary to carry out 
this use case. However, there may be continuing opportunity to 
participate even after initial activity commences. Selected 
participants will be required to enter into a consortium CRADA with 
NIST (for reference, see the ADDRESSES section above). NIST published a 
notice in the Federal Register on October 19, 2012 (77 FR 64314) 
inviting U.S. companies to enter into National Cybersecurity Excellence 
Partnerships (NCEPs) in furtherance of the NCCoE. For this 
demonstration project, NCEP partners will not be given priority for 
participation.
    Use Case Objective: The objective of this use case is to provide an 
architecture that can be referenced and develop guidance for securing 
IIoT in commercial- and/or utility-scale distributed energy resource 
(DER) environments, and to include an example solution that uses 
existing, commercially available and/or open-source cybersecurity 
products. A detailed description of the Securing the IIoT use case is 
available at https://www.nccoe.nist.gov/node/4741.
    Requirements: Each responding organization's letter of interest 
should identify which security platform component(s) or capability(ies) 
it is offering. Letters of interest should not include company 
proprietary information, and all components and capabilities must be 
commercially available. Components and capabilities are listed in 
section 4 of the Securing the IIoT for the energy sector use case (for 
reference, please see the link in the PROCESS section above) and 
include:
 Access control techniques for network, application, and data 
access
 Data integrity technologies that protect data at rest or in 
transit, detect data integrity violations, and ensure data authenticity
 Graph analytics, machine learning, behavioral monitoring, and 
predictive analytics that aid in detecting malware and data integrity 
violations
 Information visualization and dashboard techniques that 
present analytic results to human operators
 Infrastructure components to construct or emulate the elements 
of the conceptual architecture
 Infrastructure components that incorporate integrity and 
trustworthiness techniques
 Sensors, network monitoring, system monitoring, data 
acquisition devices, intelligent sensor gateways, and security 
information and event management, or SIEM, systems that provide data 
and event information for analysis

 System/device and human authentication techniques that support 
federation

[[Page 53684]]

 Trustworthy distributed audit trails for accountability
 Workflow techniques to orchestrate analysis

    Each responding organization's letter of interest should identify 
how their products or infrastructure components address one or more of 
the following desired solution characteristics in section 4 of the 
Securing the IIoT for the energy sector use case (for reference, please 
see the link in the PROCESS section above):
    1. Analysis and Visualization. The analysis and visualization 
capabilities collect and process monitoring data from communications, 
management systems, and control systems to detect anomalies and 
identify anomalies that represent potential malicious activity.
    2. Authentication and Access Control. The authentication and access 
control capabilities are used on all communication among DER management 
and control systems. These capabilities ensure that only known, 
authorized systems/devices can exchange information. Further, these 
capabilities may limit the types of information exchanged. Attempted 
unauthorized communication or attempted communication by unknown 
systems/devices is detected and reported to the analysis and 
visualization capabilities.
    3. Behavioral Monitoring. The behavioral monitoring capabilities 
measure behavioral characteristics of the management and control 
systems. Measurements are compared with expected or normal behavioral 
characteristics that have been learned over time. Anomalies are 
reported to the analysis and visualization capability.
    4. Command Register. The command register capability records 
transactions between the distribution control system and control 
systems managing DERs. This capability allows both the utility and the 
DER operator to verify information exchanges.
    5. Data Integrity. Data integrity capabilities ensure that 
information is not modified in transit between the sender and receiver. 
If the information is modified, the capabilities detect the 
modification and notify the analysis and visualization capabilities.
    6. Malware Detection. The malware detection capabilities monitor 
both information exchanges among the DER management and control systems 
and processing by the management and control systems, looking for 
indications of compromise by known malware.
    Responding organizations need to understand and, in their letters 
of interest, commit to provide:
    1. Access for all participants' project teams to component 
interfaces and the organization's experts necessary to make functional 
connections among security platform components.
    2. Support for development and demonstration of the Securing the 
IIoT for the energy sector use case in NCCoE facilities which will be 
conducted in a manner consistent with the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, 
and other relevant standards and guidance listed in section 4 of the 
Securing the IIoT for the energy sector use case.
    Additional details about the Securing the IIoT for the energy 
sector use case are available at: https://www.nccoe.nist.gov/node/4741.
    NIST cannot guarantee that all products proposed by respondents 
will be used in the demonstration. Each prospective participant will be 
expected to work collaboratively with NIST staff and other project 
participants under the terms of the consortium CRADA in the development 
of the Securing the IIoT for the energy sector capability. Prospective 
participants' contribution to the collaborative effort will include 
assistance in establishing the necessary interface functionality, 
connection and set-up capabilities and procedures, demonstration 
harnesses, environmental and safety conditions for use, integrated 
platform user instructions, and demonstration plans and scripts 
necessary to demonstrate the desired capabilities. Each participant 
will train NIST personnel, as necessary, to operate its product in 
capability demonstrations to the energy community. Following successful 
demonstrations, NIST will publish a description of the security 
platform and its performance characteristics sufficient to permit other 
organizations to develop and deploy security platforms that meet the 
security objectives of the Securing the IIoT for the energy sector use 
case. These descriptions will be public information. Under the terms of 
the consortium CRADA, NIST will support development of interfaces among 
participants' products by providing IT infrastructure, laboratory 
facilities, office facilities, collaboration facilities, and staff 
support to component composition, security platform documentation, and 
demonstration activities.
    The dates of the demonstration of the Securing the IIoT for the 
energy sector capability will be announced on the NCCoE website at 
least two weeks in advance at https://nccoe.nist.gov/. The expected 
outcome of the demonstration is to improve the security of IIoT across 
an entire energy sector enterprise. Participating organizations will 
gain from the knowledge that their products are interoperable with 
other participants' offerings.
    For additional information on the NCCoE governance, business 
processes, and NCCoE operational structure, visit the NCCoE website 
https://nccoe.nist.gov/.

Kevin A. Kimball,
Chief of Staff.
[FR Doc. 2019-21852 Filed 10-7-19; 8:45 am]
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