CMMC Certification


What is NIST SP 800-53?

The NIST Special Publication 800-53 provides a catalog of security and privacy controls for information systems and organizations to protect organizational operations and assets, individuals, other organizations, and the Nation from a diverse set of threats and risks, including hostile attacks, human errors, natural disasters, structural failures, foreign intelligence entities, and privacy risks.

The controls are flexible and customizable and implemented as part of an organization-wide process to manage risk. The controls address diverse requirements derived from mission and business needs, laws, executive orders, directives, regulations, policies, standards, and guidelines.

Finally, the consolidated control catalog addresses security and privacy from a functionality perspective (i.e., the strength of functions and mechanisms provided by the controls) and from an assurance perspective (i.e., the measure of confidence in the security or privacy capability provided by the controls). Addressing functionality and assurance helps to ensure that information technology products and the systems that rely on those products are sufficiently trustworthy.

Security controls are the safeguards or countermeasures employed within a system or an organization to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the system and its information and to manage information security3 risk. Privacy controls are the administrative, technical, and physical safeguards employed within a system or an organization to manage privacy risks and to ensure compliance with applicable privacy requirements. 

Security and privacy controls are selected and implemented to satisfy security and privacy requirements levied on a system or organization. Security and privacy requirements are derived from applicable laws, executive orders, directives, regulations, policies, standards, and mission needs to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information processed, stored, or transmitted and to manage risks to individual privacy.

The selection, design, and implementation of security and privacy controls5 are important tasks that have significant implications for the operations6 and assets of organizations as well as the welfare of individuals and the Nation. Organizations should answer several key questions when addressing information security and privacy controls:

• What security and privacy controls are needed to satisfy security and privacy requirements and to adequately manage mission/business risks or risks to individuals?

• Have the selected controls been implemented or is there a plan in place to do so?

• What is the required level of assurance (i.e., grounds for confidence) that the selected controls, as designed and implemented, are effective?


What Are the Requirements and Controls?

It is important to understand the relationship between requirements and controls. For federal information security and privacy policies, the term requirement is generally used to refer to information security and privacy obligations imposed on organizations. For example, [OMB A 130] imposes information security and privacy requirements with which federal agencies must comply when managing information resources. The term requirement can also be used in a broader sense to refer to an expression of stakeholder protection needs for a particular system or organization.

The term requirement, as used in NIST SP 800-53, includes both legal and policy requirements, as well as an expression of the broader set of stakeholder protection needs that may be derived from other sources. All of these requirements, when applied to a system, help determine the necessary characteristics of the system—encompassing security, privacy, and assurance.

Controls can be viewed as descriptions of the safeguards and protection capabilities appropriate for achieving the particular security and privacy objectives of the organization and reflecting the protection needs of organizational stakeholders. Controls are selected and implemented by the organization in order to satisfy the system requirements. Controls can include administrative, technical, and physical aspects. In some cases, the selection and implementation of a control may necessitate additional specification by the organization in the form of derived requirements or instantiated control parameter values. 


Who Should Comply with the NIST SP 800-53 Standard?

The security and privacy controls in NIST SP 800-53 are recommended for use by all organizations to satisfy their information security and privacy requirements.

The use of these controls is mandatory for federal information systems in accordance with Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Circular A-130 and the provisions of the Federal Information Security Modernization Act [FISMA], which requires the implementation of minimum controls to protect federal information and information systems.

The control catalog can be viewed as a toolbox containing a collection of safeguards, countermeasures, techniques, and processes to respond to security and privacy risks.

The controls are employed as part of a well-defined risk management process that supports organizational information security and privacy programs. In turn, those information security and privacy programs lay the foundation for the success of the mission and business functions of the organization.










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NIST SP 800-53 standard







Download Control Baselines for NIST SP 800-53 standard

(NIST SP 800-53B)


 

What Are the Components of NIST SP 800-53?

Security and privacy controls described in NIST SP 800-53 publication have a well-defined organization and structure. For ease of use in the security and privacy control selection and specification process, controls are organized into 20 families:

  • Access Control (AC)
  • Awareness & Training (AT)
  • Audit & Accountability (AU)
  • Assessment, Authorization, and Monitoring (CA)
  • Configuration Management (CM)
  • Contingency Planning (CP)
  • Identification & Authentication (IA)
  • Incident Response (IR)
  • Maintenance (MA)
  • Media Protection (MP)
  • Physical and Enviromental Protection (PE)
  • Planning (PL)
  • Program Management (PM)
  • Personnel Security (PS)
  • PII Processing and Transparency (PT)
  • Risk Assessment (RA)
  • System and Services Acquisition (SA)
  • System and Communications Protection (SC)
  • System and Information Integrity (SI)
  • Supply Chain Risk Management (SR)

Don’t try to manage it all alone! Linqs  has extensive experience in compliance with the NIST SP 800-53 requirements.

We can assist you by training your employees and developing policy and procedures in addition to providing expert guidance on securing your systems for achieving compliance with NIST SP 800-53 as soon as possible.


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