New Alliance Seeks to Improve US Electric Grid Cybersecurity

PRESS RELEASE

PORTLAND, Ore., Aug. 31, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Ampere Industrial Security and
INPOWERD have combined forces to help utilities and energy companies raise their
levels of cybersecurity, reliability and compliance.

The new partnership of these two strong, highly-experienced industrial
cybersecurity consulting firms will give more critical infrastructure
organizations the opportunity to improve their levels of NERC CIP and Operations
and Planning (O&P) standards compliance at the same time.

"We show you how to navigate, interpret, and apply the regulations with the
least amount of operational impact, budget impact, and resource impact," said
Patrick C. Miller, CEO of Ampere Industrial Security. "At the end of the day,
the lights will stay on and the organizations will be more resilient, more
compliant, and more secure."

"A cyber-attack of great consequence on the U.S. power grid would shatter the
ideal cybersecurity framework of private-sector accountability for maintaining
security of the energy sector critical infrastructure," said Earl Shockley,
president of INPOWERD. "By combining the talents and experience of INPOWERD and
Ampere, we bring to the client a tighter integration of operational and security
knowledge that supports reliability and security."

Both Shockley and Miller are former utility staff and former regulators who
helped build the compliance and enforcement programs during the startup of the
Electric Reliability Organization (ERO). They have led or participated in
approximately 300 NERC CIP and O&P compliance audits and investigations, at the
NERC, Regional and Registered Entity levels.

"Our mission is to create a greater aptitude for solving complex business
problems for our clients. Patrick and I believe our extensive combined
experience at the regulatory level, industry level and the consulting level
amplifies our firm's ability to provide clients integrated diversity around
problem solving," said Shockley.

"Both Earl and I have a similar philosophy. You have to design the compliance to
fit around --- and the controls to fit within --- the existing operational
process," said Miller. "It makes life easier for the utility staff, the
operations professionals, the security professionals, as well as the compliance
executives trying to manage this. Then the executives and shareholders of the
company can rest a little bit easier as well."