If you process highly sensitive data in your systems, a basic security checklist of individual actions or tools – firewall, antivirus, data encryption won’t suffice. You need to safeguard your organization using a broader perspective and comprehensive approach covered in frameworks like NIST. The NIST 800-53 control families outline a set of controls organizations can implement to fortify their cybersecurity posture.
In this article, we present a curated list of NIST 800 53 controls.
TL;DR
NIST 800-53 control families are a catalog of privacy and security safeguards designed to protect highly confidential data stored and processed in federal information systems.
NIST 800-53 has 20 control families that include access control, incident response, risk assessment, awareness and training, security assessment, and more.
What are NIST 800 53 controls?
NIST 800-53 controls are a framework of security and privacy controls aimed at safeguarding the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of information systems. These controls are designed to mitigate risks from various threats, such as natural disasters, insider threats, and hostile attacks.
While primarily intended for U.S. federal information systems (excluding those tied to national security), the controls can be adopted by any organization looking to strengthen its security posture and manage risk effectively across its IT infrastructure.
Components of the SP 800 53 NIST control families
Components of the NIST 800 53 framework cover five areas of security to help organizations proactively manage and mitigate risks from their inception to elimination.
Identify: Gain a deep understanding of the organization to protect systems, data, and other assets.
Protect: Implement appropriate and necessary safeguards to protect critical infrastructure.
Detect: Develop and implement appropriate measures to identify vulnerabilities.
Respond: Develop and implement appropriate measures to take action against security incidents.
Recover: Develop and implement appropriate measures to ensure business continuity and restore damages.
The NIST SP 800-53 control family guidelines include key areas that require careful consideration. These include:
- Defining the purpose and scope of the security planning efforts
- Delineating roles and responsibilities within the organization
- Ensuring management commitment to the security objectives
- Fostering effective coordination among different entities
- Upholding organizational compliance with relevant standards and regulations
NIST 800 53 Controls List
When it comes to NIST SP 800-53 Control Families, each family has a unique role in fortifying your organization’s cybersecurity defenses.
NIST security controls protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the system and help to manage risks to information security. The set of controls under NIST Privacy requirements cover the administrative, technical, and physical safeguards that help to manage privacy risks and stay compliant.
Let’s find out what they are:
1. AC – Access Control
It focuses on who can access what assets and ensures proper account management, system privileges, and remote access logging.
2. AU – Audit and Accountability
The AU family helps establish audit policies and procedures, keeps track of audit logs, generates reports, and safeguards valuable audit information.
3. AT – Awareness and Training
The AT family focuses on security training and records to enhance awareness and equip your staff with the knowledge to stay vigilant against threats.
4. CM – Configuration Management
The CM family establishes policies for system configurations, maintains inventories of information system components, and conducts security impact analysis to ensure a strong foundation for future builds or changes.
5. CP – Contingency Planning
CP family helps create contingency plans to tackle cybersecurity incidents effectively. From testing and training to backups and system recovery, it ensures you’re ready for any unexpected challenges.
6. IA – Identification and Authentication
It ensures only authorized individuals gain access. It focuses on identity verification and authentication processes for organizational and non-organizational users.
7. IR – Incident Response
When trouble strikes, the IR family springs into action. It establishes policies and procedures for incident response, including training, testing, monitoring, reporting, and a comprehensive response plan.
8. MA – Maintenance
The MA family keeps your systems in top shape. It outlines security requirements for maintaining organizational systems and the tools used to support them, ensuring their continued reliability and performance.
9. MP – Media Protection
The MP family safeguards physical media, such as storage devices, with control enhancements for access, marking, storage, transport policies, sanitization, and defined organizational media use.
10. PS – Personnel Security
Your personnel are the frontline defenders of your organization. The PS control family focuses on protecting them through NIST risk assessment, screening, termination procedures, access agreements, and more.
11. PE – Physical and Environmental Protection
The PE family safeguards your organization’s physical assets and infrastructure. From access authorizations to emergency protocols, power management to fire protection, it ensures your systems remain secure in the physical world.
12. PT – PII Processing and Transparency
The PT family ensures the proper handling of personally identifiable information (PII). This includes the collection, use, sharing, and retention of such information. It aims to improve transparency through clear privacy policies, user consent mechanisms, and providing user access to their PII.
13. PL – Planning
The PL family outlines your organization’s security planning policies. It covers the purpose, scope, roles, responsibilities, management commitment, coordination, industry standards, and organizational compliance necessary for effective security planning.
14. PM – Program Management
This is the manager of your cybersecurity program. It establishes critical infrastructure plans, information security program plans, and risk management frameworks and helps align your enterprise architecture with your security objectives.
15. RA – Risk Assessment
The RA family focuses on assessing vulnerabilities and conducting regular scans to identify potential risks. Tools like CyberStrong can streamline your NIST SP 800-53 compliance efforts.
Effective risk management requires evaluating risks within the business context and against common benchmarks. Otherwise, risk management strategy becomes intuitive, filled with assumptions, and disconnected from reality, ultimately defeating its purpose.
Risk management tools like Sprinto rigorously interprets risks and assesses impacts, enabling precise actions. It connects natively with your cloud stack to quickly identify misconfigurations and vulnerabilities, helping you build a true risk inventory. A comprehensive risk register and trusted industry benchmarks ensures intentional, not intuitive, risk management. Get a demo now.
16. CA – Security Assessment and Authorization
The CA supports security assessments, authorizations, and continuous monitoring and establishes plans for ongoing security standards improvements.
17. SC – System and Communications Protection
This control guards your systems and communications against various threats. It offers boundary protection, cryptographic measures, and denial-of-service protection to secure information at rest and ensure the safety of your digital interactions.
18. SI – System and Information Integrity
The SI family ensures the integrity of your systems and information. It focuses on vulnerability remediation, monitoring, protection against malicious code, software and firmware integrity, and safeguards.
19. SR – Supply Chain Risk Management
This control helps you identify, assess, and mitigate risks associated with the supply chain for information systems and components. This includes third-party risk management, ensuring secure procurement, and maintaining supplier oversight to protect computing system integrity and data confidentiality.
Here’s an exhaustive list of NIST 800-53 controls with impact levels you can download:
Download Your NIST 800-53 Controls
NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5: Significant Changes
NIST SP 800-53, Revision 5, was released in December 2020, marking a pivotal step toward safeguarding critical U.S. infrastructure. The key changes in the revisions include:
- Control statements now focus on outcomes rather than specifying who is responsible (e.g., system or organization).
- The catalog of security and privacy base controls is combined into a single, unified catalog for more seamless use.
- A new control family has been introduced to address risks within the supply chain.
- Control selection processes are now separate from the controls themselves, allowing broader application across different fields (e.g., engineers, architects, software developers).
- Control baselines and tailoring guidance have been moved to NIST SP 800-53B for more clarity and flexibility.
- Improved clarity on how requirements relate to control baselines for information systems and organizations and how security and privacy controls interact.
- Added new controls to support cyber resilience, secure systems design, and improve security and privacy governance based on the latest threat intelligence.
Implement, manage, & monitor NIST controls with Sprinto
What’s Next?
NIST 800-53 controls families play a vital role in fortifying your organization’s cybersecurity defenses and protecting your valuable assets. From access control to incident response, these controls establish a comprehensive security framework.
Wondering where to start next?
We’ve combined the power of compliance automation with human intervention to tackle those pain points you often encounter. Curious to learn more? Don’t hesitate to reach out to us today. We’ll show you just how easy it can be to navigate your way through NIST compliance with Sprinto by your side. Let’s talk and make your compliance journey smoother than ever!
FAQs
How many NIST security controls are there?
The NIST 800-53 data classification control is a component of the security and privacy control baseline outlined by NIST for federal government agencies. It includes guidelines on how agencies should effectively manage their systems, applications, and integrations to uphold the principles of confidentiality, integrity, and availability.
What is NIST 800-53 data classification control?
There are three distinct baselines in NIST 800 53 compliance and catalog of security controls, each catering to a specific system impact level—low-impact, moderate-impact, and high-impact. There is also a privacy baseline that is universally applied to systems, regardless of their impact level, to reduce structural failures.
How many NIST security controls are there?
There are three distinct baselines in NIST security controls, each catering to a specific system impact level—low-impact, moderate-impact, and high-impact. There is also a privacy baseline that is universally applied to systems, regardless of their impact level.
Meeba Gracy
Meeba, an ISC2-certified cybersecurity specialist, passionately decodes and delivers impactful content on compliance and complex digital security matters. Adept at transforming intricate concepts into accessible insights, she’s committed to enlightening readers. Off the clock, she can be found with her nose in the latest thriller novel or exploring new haunts in the city.
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