NIST Special Publication 800-53
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NIST Special Publication 800-53 provides a catalog of security controls for all U.S. federal information systems except those related to national security. It is published by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which is a non-regulatory agency of the United States Department of Commerce. NIST develops and issues standards, guidelines, and other publications to assist federal agencies in implementing the Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002 (FISMA) and to help with managing cost effective programs to protect their information and information systems.
NIST Special Publication 800-53 is part of the Special Publication 800-series that reports on the Information Technology Laboratory’s (ITL) research, guidelines, and outreach efforts in information system security, and on ITL’s activity with industry, government, and academic organizations.
Specifically, NIST Special Publication 800-53 covers the steps in the Risk Management Framework that address security control selection for federal information systems in accordance with the security requirements in Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 200. This includes selecting an initial set of baseline security controls based on a FIPS 199 worst-case impact analysis, tailoring the baseline security controls, and supplementing the security controls based on an organizational assessment of risk. The security rules cover 17 areas including access control, incident response, business continuity, and disaster recoverability.
A key part of the certification and accreditation process for federal information systems is selecting and implementing a subset of the controls (safeguards) from the Security Control Catalog (NIST 800-53, Appendix F) . These controls are the management, operational, and technical safeguards (or countermeasures) prescribed for an information system to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the system and its information. To implement the needed safeguards or controls, agencies must first determine the security category of their information systems in accordance with the provisions of FIPS 199, “Standards for Security Categorization of Federal Information and Information Systems.” The security categorization of the information system (low, moderate or high) determines the baseline collection of controls that must be implemented and monitored. Agencies have the ability to adjust these controls and tailor them to fit more closely with their organizational goals or environments.
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