NEPRA IT/OT Regulations Compliance Guide — 300+ Power Licensees

Binding since September 2022, the regulation mandates a Security Operations Centre (SOC), continuous monitoring across both IT and operational technology environments, real-time incident reporting to PowerCERT, and a minimum 5-year retention period for security logs — applied as one combined IT/OT standard rather than separate rules.

All NEPRA-licensed power generation, transmission, and distribution companies — over 300 licensees nationally.

PowerCERT is the sector-specific Computer Emergency Response Team named in the 2022 regulation as the mandatory recipient of real-time security incident reports from licensed power companies, sitting alongside the broader national nCERT/PISF structure as a sector-specific reporting channel.

Not to the same level of formalisation. NEPRA's audit-firm registration process is significantly less structured than PTA's CAT-1 to CAT-4 regime. Some PTA-authorised auditors are reportedly also used for power-sector audits, but no equivalent standalone NEPRA panel has been published — representing a genuine market opportunity.

Both. It is explicitly an IT/OT regulation, applying the same SOC, monitoring, and reporting obligations across operational technology and industrial control systems as it does to conventional IT networks — requiring assessment methodology that respects the availability and safety constraints of live OT environments.

Yes. Mutex Systems supports NEPRA-licensed power companies with gap assessments, SOC design and monitoring implementation, PowerCERT incident-reporting process design, and OT/ICS-aware assessment methodology.