“Do You Hear What I Hear?”

“Place de Rome at Night” / Theodore Earl Butler (1905)

Many education facility units do not have information technology departments developing its property management and security tools and are dependent on off-the-shelf solutions and third-party providers. Cybersecurity risk of harm may involve at least two main scenarios:

• Unauthorized access to the organization network and data
• Unauthorized access to the campus community and/or others visiting the organization (either in person or remotely).

The concern is likely to be particularly acute in medical campuses where there is substantial inflow and outflow of staff, faculty, students, patients and patient visitors.

This document addresses a recommended cybersecurity practice for the parking lot lighting systems setup. It is recognized that this type of environment has the need to share IT resources with other tasks and functions, to use off-the-shelf solutions, and to outsource information and community technology.  Cybersecurity protection and mitigation measurements can be shared with other activities and functions.   More information about this standard is linked below:

ANSI/NEMA C137.2-2019 Prospectus

The current version is dated February 2019.

We are happy to discuss all consensus products by NEMA and or cybersecurity in education facilities generally.  We meet online every day at 11 AM Eastern time and we also set aside one hour every month to sort through safety and sustainability standards action that applies to Transportation and Parking facilities.  See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting; open to everyone.

Issue: [18-86]

Category: Electrical, #SmartCampus

Colleagues: Mike Anthony, Jim Harvey, Steve Townsend

ARCHIVE: Posted March 27, 2019

The National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) has released for public review a new standard — C137.2 Standard for Lighting Systems – Cybersecurity Requirements for Lighting Systems for Parking Facilities.  The purpose of this standard is to provide cybersecurity requirements for lighting systems used in parking facilities with public access.  This standard provides specifications for the protection of signals and data to, from and within the lighting system, potentially including those that may initiate, control, or monitor non-lighting functions. This standard is not intended to address parking facilities with enhanced security requirements, such as critical infrastructure sectors. This standard does not apply to cybersecurity for safety-related cybersecurity.

Comments are due May 7th. 

The landing page for all NEMA standards action is linked below:

About NEMA Standards

You may obtain an electronic copy from Karen Willis, (703) 841-3277, [email protected].  Send your comments to Karen (with copy to [email protected]).   We will coordinate our response to this commenting opportunity with the IEEE Education & Healthcare Facilities Committee which meets twice today and every other week.

All NEMA consensus documents are on the standing agenda of our weekly Open Door teleconferences — every Wednesday, 11 AM Eastern time.    Click here for login information.

Issue: [18-86]

Category: Electrical, #SmartCampus

Colleagues: Mike Anthony, Jim Harvey