Meeting Energy Sector Regulations Through Full Network Visibility
In the energy and utilities sector, regulatory mandates and executive directives are driving a fundamental shift toward enhanced network visibility across both IT and OT environments. As critical infrastructure operators, utilities must comply with stringent cybersecurity and reliability requirements that demand continuous monitoring, auditable data capture, and real-time threat detection. Executive orders and regulatory frameworks increasingly require organizations to maintain full visibility into grid operations, substations, SCADA systems, and distributed energy resources to ensure resilience against cyber threats and operational disruptions. Network visibility solutions—such as full packet capture, traffic analysis, and centralized monitoring—play a critical role in enabling compliance by providing verifiable records of network activity, supporting incident response, and ensuring audit readiness. Ultimately, deep observability is no longer optional; it is a regulatory expectation tied directly to national security, service continuity, and risk management.
Key Regulations & Implications
- NERC Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) Standards
- Requires identification and protection of critical cyber assets across bulk electric systems
- Mandates continuous monitoring, logging, and incident detection capabilities
- Implies deep visibility into OT and IT network traffic to ensure security and auditability
- Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Regulations
- Enforces reliability and security standards for the bulk power system
- Drives requirements for situational awareness across interconnected grid infrastructure
- Supports the need for network visibility to validate compliance and investigate disturbances
- DOE Cybersecurity Capability Maturity Model (C2M2)
- Provides a framework for evaluating and improving cybersecurity maturity
- Encourages comprehensive asset inventory and network monitoring practices
- Highlights the importance of visibility into network activity for threat detection and response
- TSA Security Directives for Pipeline and Energy Operators
- Mandates implementation of cybersecurity measures for critical energy infrastructure
- Requires incident detection, reporting, and continuous monitoring capabilities
- Necessitates visibility into network communications to identify anomalies and threats
- NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF)
- Promotes continuous monitoring and detection across all network environments
- Requires visibility into assets, data flows, and network activity under the “Detect” function
- Supports real-time awareness to enable rapid response and recovery
- IEC 62443 (Industrial Control Systems Security)
- Focuses on securing industrial automation and control system environments
- Requires network segmentation, monitoring, and secure communication practices
- Emphasizes visibility into OT networks to detect unauthorized access or anomalies
- ISO/IEC 27001
- Requires implementation of information security controls and risk management processes
- Mandates logging, monitoring, and review of network and system activity
- Network visibility supports compliance by enabling audit trails and incident investigation
- Executive Order 14028 – Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity
- Mandates enhanced logging, visibility, and centralized security operations
- Promotes Zero Trust Architecture requiring full awareness of network assets and traffic
- Encourages adoption of advanced detection tools reliant on network telemetry
- NIST SP 800-82 – Industrial Control Systems Security
- Provides guidance for securing SCADA and ICS environments
- Recommends continuous monitoring and anomaly detection across control networks
- Reinforces the need for visibility into industrial network communications
- State Public Utility Commission (PUC) Cybersecurity Requirements
- Establish state-level mandates for protecting utility infrastructure and customer data
- Often require incident reporting, risk assessments, and security monitoring
- Drive adoption of network visibility solutions to meet compliance and operational resilience goals
NEOX Solutions for Utilities and Energy
Delivering Advanced Network Visibility and Compliance Alignment for Energy Infrastructure and Utility Operators
Network
Tapping
Network
Brokering
Network
Capture
Network
Security
Insights from Control Room to Field - Every Packet Keeps the Lights On
Network Intelligence, Threat Detection, Forensics, Incident Response, Compliance
From Grid to Gig — Visibility That Delivers Power and Precision
End-to-End Hybrid Network Visibility for Operational Uptime
01.
Full Network Transparency
- Full Grid Visibility
- 400Gbps SCADA Traffic Monitoring
- Complete OT/IT Network Access
- Encrypted Industrial Protocol Inspection
- Lateral/External Traffic Analysis
- Secure Gateway Proxies
02.
Threat Detection & Mitigation
- Grid Threat Prevention
- Industrial IDS Protection
- Anomaly Detection for OT Networks
- Centralized Security Monitoring
- Real-Time Incident Logging
- Compressed Data Retention
03.
Forensics Analysis & Compliance
- Packet data storage for weeks
- 100Gbps full-packet capture
- Flow and log data export
- Out-of-box analysis software
- PCAP & Wireshark support
- Audit trail & Compliance
Cybersecurity & Critical Infrastructure Protection
Cyberattacks on the energy and utilities sector aren’t just theoretical—they’re happening with increasing frequency and scale. From ransomware crippling gas pipelines to advanced persistent threats targeting grid operators, the stakes are national security and public safety. CIOs and CISOs must prioritize end-to-end cybersecurity that protects both IT systems and mission-critical OT assets like SCADA, DCS, PLCs, and substation controllers. Traditional security tools alone can’t handle the unique protocols and air-gapped systems of OT environments.
NEOX plays a foundational role here by delivering full-fidelity network visibility that doesn’t interfere with industrial operations. Our hardened TAPs and unidirectional data diodes safely mirror traffic from critical OT infrastructure and send it—without any risk of backflow—to monitoring systems on the IT side. These data streams are processed by NEOX’s intelligent packet brokers, which clean, normalize, and distribute traffic to NDR platforms, Suricata-based NIDS, SIEMs, and forensic tools.
By capturing complete packets (not just flow metadata), NEOX enables real-time intrusion detection, lateral movement tracking, and post-breach analysis at the byte level. Our solutions help utilities comply with cybersecurity frameworks like NERC CIP, NIST 800-82, IEC 62443, and ISO/IEC 27001, and support initiatives like Zero Trust and MITRE ATT&CK for ICS. NEOX also offers long-term packet retention, ensuring digital evidence is preserved for audits, investigations, or litigation. This layered, full-spectrum visibility is a must-have for utilities defending against today’s advanced cyber threats and nation-state actors—protecting critical infrastructure, service continuity, and public confidence.
IT & OT Convergence & Network Visibility
As utilities modernize, the line between operational technology (OT) and information technology (IT) continues to blur. SCADA systems now share data with enterprise analytics platforms, and edge devices in substations feed machine learning models in the cloud. For CIOs and CISOs, the challenge is creating a unified, secure, and observable network across traditionally siloed domains, without compromising safety or uptime. The goal is seamless data flow with full control, insight, and isolation when necessary.
NEOX enables this convergence through passive, fail-safe TAPs and data diodes that extract traffic from OT environments while maintaining strict segmentation. This traffic is routed through our modular, scalable packet brokers, which can aggregate data from across plants, substations, field locations, and control rooms. Once centralized, traffic can be filtered, deduplicated, timestamped, and enriched before being delivered to performance monitoring, anomaly detection, or asset discovery tools.
This level of visibility makes it possible to baseline normal OT behavior, detect deviations, and proactively address failures or security risks. It also accelerates IT/OT integration projects by providing accurate, protocol-aware telemetry for system engineers and security teams alike. NEOX supports protocols commonly used in utility environments—like Modbus, DNP3, IEC 61850, and OPC—and helps teams correlate industrial activity with enterprise infrastructure logs and cloud-based analytics.
With NEOX, utility operators gain a complete picture of their hybrid network—from the control layer to the cloud—supporting digital twin initiatives, predictive maintenance programs, and centralized command-and-control operations. The result is faster decision-making, reduced risk, and more efficient operations—all driven by high-fidelity, real-time data.
Operational Resilience & Regulatory Compliance
In the utility world, downtime isn’t just expensive—it’s unacceptable. Whether delivering electricity, water, or fuel, these organizations must operate around the clock with near-zero tolerance for service disruption. That means building infrastructure that can withstand cyberattacks, aging systems, equipment failure, and natural disasters. At the same time, utility CIOs and CISOs must comply with a wide range of regulatory mandates—often overlapping—while maintaining operational flexibility and modernization goals.
NEOX supports this dual mandate of resilience and compliance by providing the network visibility foundation for secure, always-on operations. Our industrial-grade, high-availability TAPs ensure no packet is missed, even in high-speed, redundant networks. Inline-bypass functionality guarantees uninterrupted flow of traffic even during maintenance or failure of inline tools. NEOX’s deep packet capture solutions archive network traffic for days, weeks, or months—ensuring that post-incident analysis, fault isolation, and forensic investigation can be done with precision.
Compliance with standards like NERC CIP, FERC Order 2222, NIST 800-53, ISO 27001, and GDPR requires granular data logs, traceability, and auditability—all of which NEOX supports through searchable packet archives and real-time network metadata generation. Our packet brokers simplify the task of feeding only relevant traffic to compliance tools, avoiding unnecessary overhead while ensuring fidelity. Whether validating uptime metrics, demonstrating segmentation, or proving data integrity during audits, NEOX becomes a critical enabler. Additionally, our platform allows utilities to continuously assess system health, monitor latency, validate SCADA responsiveness, and verify failover mechanisms—ensuring business continuity across all layers. NEOX empowers utilities to modernize their grid, adopt renewables, and expand digital services, all while staying secure, compliant, and operational in the face of increasing global uncertainty.
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For Business Continuity & Operational Efficiency
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FEATURED RESOURCES
Network Visibility for Our Customers
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