Seven Most Violated NERC Standards and How to Maintain Compliance

Diagnosing Repeated Violations 

Every year, the Regional Entities’ Compliance Monitoring and Enforcement Program (CMEP) highlights and reports to NERC, the reliability standards most frequently violated across the industry. These repeated violations often signify underlying systematic operational issues that can result in penalties of up to $1 million per day per violation. Repeated violations often reflect not just documentation lapses, but patterns that stay invisible until an audit forces a retrospective review. 

The key concern isn’t only which NERC standards utilities are struggling with, but why these violations continue to occur. Broadly speaking, most compliance reportable incidents share these common root causes:  

• Lack of internal controls and consistent compliance awareness 
• No unified self-certification or compliance monitoring program 
• Siloed data repositories and no single source of truth between compliance stakeholders 
• Manual, resource-heavy processes that can be automated 

By identifying and addressing these underlying issues, utilities can shift from a reactive compliance posture to a proactive, resilient NERC regulatory program that improves both corporate processes and overall reliability. Most utilities believe their internal controls are functioning until a self-certification or audit highlights blind spots that were not visible internally.  

1. CIP-003 – Cyber Security – Security Management Controls 

Violation: CIP-003 violations often stem from delayed reviews or missing documentation for High- and Medium- Impact BES Cyber Systems lists. These gaps usually indicate a breakdown in effective oversight. For example, either a CIP Senior Manager isn’t receiving timely updates or there’s no automated reminder system to trigger required certification. These issues frequently surface late in the audit cycle, creating reactive workload spikes and straining internal resources.

Root Cause: In many organizations, compliance activities are siloed within isolated spreadsheets or manual logs, and tasks are tracked reactively rather than managed as part of living compliance ecosystems.  

How to Maintain Compliance: As a best practice, it is important to build internal controls that formalize accountability and visibility. This includes establishing a recurring calendar notification of required reviews, linking tasks to automated alerts and centralizing documentation in a single compliance management platform. These steps ensure the right people are prompted at the right time and compliance teams can access a consistent evidence-based trail.  

2. CIP-004 – Cyber Security – Personnel & Training 

Violation: This standard is commonly violated when organizations do not revoke access within 24 hours of a role change or termination from the company.  

Root Cause: Disconnected coordination between HR, IT and compliance teams is often the core challenge, with each team operating within separate systems without proper sharing of information. Most organizations assume their onboarding and offboarding workflows are aligned, but small inconsistencies between HR, IT and compliance systems compound quickly when staff move roles. Formally documented handoffs between departments are critical, especially when employees move between departments or roles. 

How to Maintain Compliance: Establish a single source of truth for personnel tracking that integrates with HR and IT systems. Make sure to automate reminders for training renewals and access removal. Most importantly, implement a cross-functional workflow that aligns departments, so compliance doesn’t depend on one person remembering to “loop in” another.  

3. CIP-007 – Cyber Security – System Security Management 

Violation: CIP-007 violations typically arise when security patch management cycles or vulnerability assessments are managed manually. Even the most disciplined teams can miss critical updates when they rely on emails and spreadsheets to track security changes. The underlying issue isn’t negligence; it’s capacity and inefficient processes to monitor remote web-based networks. A delayed patch cycle doesn’t only create compliance exposure; it widens the organization’s actual cyber risk window. 

Root Cause: Manual processes simply can’t keep up with the complexity of modern digital environments.  

How to Maintain Compliance: Automate where possible by using robotic programming automation (RPA) bot technology, as an example. Use systems that schedule, verify and record patch completions. Pair automation with periodic human reviews, so your compliance team focuses on exceptions rather than routine tracking. This combination and oversight drastically reduces the likelihood of missing patches and keeps your evidence audit-ready year-round. 

4. CIP-010 – Cyber Security — Configuration Change Management and Vulnerability Assessments 

Violation: This standard is frequently violated because change management is often treated as an IT process rather than formal compliance control. Configuration updates may happen daily, but if each one isn’t logged, reviewed, and verified within the compliance framework, evidence gaps form quickly. Many organizations also lack standardized templates or version control for documenting changes. 

Root Cause: Non-compliance typically stems from ineffective change management processes, gaps in evidence and a lack of regular vulnerability assessments. If changing documentation feels burdensome, it often signals the underlying workflow needs clearer ownership rather than additional forms.  

How to Maintain Compliance: Establish a formal, documented change-management procedure with clearly defined ownership and review steps. Centralize configuration logs in a shared repository and implement automated alerts for unapproved changes. Consider pairing technical configuration tools with compliance dashboards that visualize upcoming deadlines and display status updates for all assets in scope. 

5. FAC-008 – Facility Ratings 

Violation: FAC-008 violations are almost always caused by a disconnect between back-office documentation and post-field work activity. Assets may be upgraded, replaced and re-rated but those changes often don’t cascade through the master database. Generator Owners and Transmission Owners (GO/TO) may not have aligned procedures for determining or updating ratings, which leads to inconsistent facility ratings data between these two entities. Inconsistent ratings can impact planning models, equipment purchasing and long-term system reliability. 

Root Cause: Insufficient coordination between GO and TO registered functions results in oversight risks, improper facility ratings and field personnel updates not being thoroughly tracked in the official facility ratings databases.  

How to Maintain Compliance: Treat facility ratings data validation as an ongoing task, as opposed to a one-time cleanup task. Conduct periodic joint reviews between GOs and TOs, reconciling field data against power flow models. Leverage digital asset management systems that capture change history and make that information easily reviewable.  

While GOs and TOs have distinct roles that are subject to FERC Standards of Conduct, effective FAC-008 compliance still depends on structured coordination between these registered functions. Clear and well-defined data exchange processes, rather than informal collaboration, are critical to ensuring facility rating changes made in the field are accurately reflected in official ratings databases. Establishing formal touchpoints for data overlap, documented handoffs and auditable workflows allows GOs and TOs to remain compliant with accurate facility ratings.

6. PRC-005 – Transmission Protection System Maintenance and Testing 

Violation: PRC-005 violations tend to result from missing test records or misaligned maintenance intervals. What starts as an easy to miss, simple oversight like an overdue relay test or an unfiled result, can snowball into a habitual string of non-compliance, if responsibilities between GO and TO compliance roles are unclear. 

Root Cause: Many utilities rely on manual spreadsheets to track maintenance schedules across thousands of devices. Many PRC-005 issues originate during commissioning, long before assets are handed off to the permanent maintenance owner. Additionally, a host of pre-commissioning activities does not require updating the asset management database with these newer qualified PRC-005 BES assets. 

How to Maintain Compliance: Best practices include developing a centralized maintenance program that assigns ownership, documents, test results and automates interval tracking. Encourage consistent GO/TO coordination meetings where maintenance plans are reviewed collectively to identify potential gaps. When everyone shares visibility, compliance becomes a by-product of good operational discipline.  

7. CIP-014 – Physical Security 

Violation: Physical security standard violations often come from outdated risk assessments or security plans that haven’t evolved with system changes. Utilities may have the right procedures in place, but if those procedures aren’t routinely tested or reassessed, they lose effectiveness over time. With rising physical security threats, FERC continues to emphasize scenario realism and periodic reassessment of protective measures. 

Root Cause: Commonly, treating physical security as a static requirement rather than a living and adaptive program is the central reason for violations. Establish internal controls at each qualified BES station, as well as incorporating compliance awareness into the FAC-001 document for prospective developers seeking to interconnect to your operating territory. 

How to Maintain Compliance: Conduct regular scenario-based drills that simulate evolving threats, verify equipment performance, and reinforce team readiness and knowledge of procedures. Building repeatable workflows that schedule reassessments and ensure documentation reflects real-world conditions. A mature program has resilience built in.