Knowledge is Power
BARE METAL CYBERKnowledge is Power

Sitewide Search

Search Bare Metal Cyber

Search courses, individual lessons, wiki entries, books, podcasts, magazine articles, Daily Cyber News, and Darwin.

NIST SP 800-172 Enhanced CUI Protection Center

03.03.01E — Protection of Audit Record Storage in Separate Physical Systems or Components

Read the official CUI requirement and assessment content, then use the separately labeled Bare Metal Cyber perspective to connect it to implementation, evidence, and sustained operation.

1Source controls
1Assessment objectives
3Assessment methods

03.03 — Audit and Accountability · NIST SP 800-172 Revision 3

Active
Official NIST requirement content

Security requirement

Store audit records in a repository that is part of a physically different system or system component than the system or component being audited.

Official NIST discussion

Discussion

Storing audit records in a repository that is separate from the audited system or system component helps to ensure that a compromise of the system being audited does not also result in a compromise of the audit records. Storing audit records on separate physical systems or components preserves the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of audit records and facilitates the management of audit records as an organization-wide activity. Storing audit records on separate systems or system components applies to the initial generation and backup or long-term storage of audit records. This requirement enhances SP 800-171 requirement 03.03.08.

Official protection strategy classifications

Protection strategies supported

These classifications are carried from the official SP 800-172 OSCAL record and help explain the enhanced requirement’s defensive purpose.

PS-DLODamage-Limiting Operations
Bare Metal Cyber interpretation

Implementation perspective

Treat Protection of Audit Record Storage in Separate Physical Systems or Components as an enhanced CUI protection outcome for elevated threat conditions that must be reflected in the system boundary, documented implementation, operational behavior, and assessment evidence. Pay particular attention to event selection, trustworthy logging, review, retention, and support for CUI investigations.

  1. Confirm the federal agency selected this enhanced requirement for the critical program or high-value asset and identify the CUI system components, services, users, and external connections in scope.
  2. Resolve every organization-defined parameter through an approved governance and tailoring process.
  3. Map each clause of the requirement to an accountable owner, implementation mechanism, and evidence source.
  4. Verify that inherited and shared implementations are supported by current provider evidence and responsibility boundaries.
  5. Collect evidence during normal operation and review changes, exceptions, and deficiencies on a risk-based cadence.

Questions to ask

  • Which critical-program or high-value-asset CUI, data flows, users, and services are protected by this enhanced requirement?
  • Which portions are implemented locally, inherited, shared, or not applicable, and what evidence supports that determination?
  • Do the system security plan, deployed configuration, operating process, and assessment evidence tell the same story?
  • What change, incident, or threshold should trigger reassessment?

Evidence and validation

  • logging standards and event-selection decisions
  • sample audit records and retention settings
  • time synchronization evidence
  • alert review and investigation records

Common failure patterns

  • collecting logs without defined use cases
  • critical CUI events absent from the audit trail
  • retention shorter than investigative needs
  • logs modifiable by the same administrators being monitored
Official NIST SP 800-172A content

Assessment objectives and methods

Assessment objectives (1)

  1. audit records are stored in a repository that is part of a physically different system or system component than the system or component being audited.

Examine

  • Audit and accountability policy
  • system security plan
  • procedures addressing protection of audit information
  • system design documentation
  • system configuration settings and associated documentation
  • system or media storing backups of system audit records
  • system audit records
  • other relevant documents or records

Interview

  • Personnel with audit and accountability responsibilities
  • personnel with information security responsibilities
  • system/network administrators
  • system developers

Test

  • Mechanisms implementing the backing up of audit records
Official source-control relationships

Source NIST SP 800-53 controls

These controls are referenced by the official SP 800-172 Rev. 3 OSCAL record. Open the corresponding control pages for complete control text, enhancements, D3FEND mappings, and related learning.

Source controlAU-9(2)Open SP 800-53 control →
Source record

Authoritative sources

Bare Metal Cyber is an independent educational publisher and is not affiliated with or endorsed by NIST. The official publications, the responsible federal agency, and the governing contract or agreement determine applicability, tailoring, assessment depth, and required implementation.