The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) recently advanced a set of rule-making actions aimed at strengthening the North American Electric Reliability Corporation’s (NERC) Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) standards for the energy sector, introducing enhanced requirements for virtualization, supply chain oversight, and expanded scope into lower-impact systems. The blog highlights how these moves are increasingly aligned with the principles and structure of the ISA/IEC 62443 series of standards — notably secure design, defense-in-depth, auditability and lifecycle management — meaning utilities and vendors can benefit from a unified “language” of cybersecurity expectations that spans regulation and industrial automation frameworks.

At its core, the alignment means that organizations subject to NERC CIP obligations may already be well-positioned if they have adopted ISA/IEC 62443 practices: procurement policies, product security lifecycle controls, zone/conduit architecture, and supplier assurance mapped cleanly to the evolving regulatory landscape. As regulators and industry converge on these international standards, asset owners and vendors are encouraged to view ISA/IEC 62443 not just as optional best-practice but as a strategic enabler of compliance, resilience and vendor trust across the OT/ICS domain.

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Source: https://gca.isa.org/blog/ferc-nerc-cip-and-the-isa-iec-62443-series-of-standards