Security requirement
Provide an alert within [Organization-defined: real-time period] to [Organization-defined: personnel, roles, and/or locations] when the following audit failure events occur: [Organization-defined: audit logging failure events].
Discussion
Alerts provide organizations with urgent messages. Real-time alerts provide these messages at information technology speed (i.e., the time from event detection to alert occurs in seconds or less). This requirement enhances SP 800-171 requirement 03.03.04.
Tailoring decisions required
Resolve these values through the governing organization’s approved tailoring and risk-management process before declaring the requirement implemented.
Protection strategies supported
These classifications are carried from the official SP 800-172 OSCAL record and help explain the enhanced requirement’s defensive purpose.
Implementation perspective
Treat Real-Time Alerts for Audit Processing Failures 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.
- 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.
- Resolve every organization-defined parameter through an approved governance and tailoring process.
- Map each clause of the requirement to an accountable owner, implementation mechanism, and evidence source.
- Verify that inherited and shared implementations are supported by current provider evidence and responsibility boundaries.
- 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
Assessment objectives and methods
Assessment objectives (1)
an alert is provided within [Organization-defined: real-time period] to [Organization-defined: personnel, roles, and/or locations] when [Organization-defined: audit logging failure events] occur.
Examine
- Audit and accountability policy
- procedures addressing response to audit processing failures
- system design documentation
- system security plan
- system configuration settings and associated documentation
- 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
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.
Authoritative sources
- NIST SP 800-172 Revision 3 official publication ↗
- NIST SP 800-172A Revision 3 official publication ↗
- NIST OSCAL Content release used for this import ↗
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.