The North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) announced it will conduct a cybersecurity incident readiness exercise, called GridEx 2011, in November as part of its ongoing cyber readiness program.

The grid security exercise, scheduled for Nov. 15-17, will test NERC’s and the electricity industry’s crisis response plans, and validate current readiness in response to a cyber incident. The exercise also will serve as an opportunity to enhance collaboration and strengthen industry security processes and capabilities.

"GridEx 2011 will involve bulk power system owners and operators from across North America," said Mark Weatherford, chief security officer for NERC. "This large-scale security exercise will continue our forward momentum in securing the grid by allowing NERC and the industry to identify any gaps and to better focus our resources."

The NERC exercise, modeled after the Department of Homeland Security’s Cyber Storm exercise series, will allow participants to respond to scenario events as they would in the case of a real-time incident. This will enable participants and leadership to assess, test and validate existing crisis response plans.

Exercise participants will include NERC staff, Regional Entities, Reliability Coordinators, Registered Entities and selected federal partners.