03.06.03E — Behavior Analysis

Official NIST requirement content

Security requirement

Analyze anomalous or suspected adversarial behavior in or related to [Organization-defined: environments or resources].

Official NIST discussion

Discussion

If the organization maintains a deception environment, an analysis of behaviors in that environment, including resources targeted by the adversary and the timing of the incident or event, can provide significant insights into adversarial tactics, techniques, and procedures. External to a deception environment, the analysis of anomalous behavior (e.g., changes in system performance or usage patterns) or suspected adversarial behavior (e.g., changes in searches for the location of specific resources) can give the organization such insight. This requirement enhances SP 800-171 requirement 03.06.01.

Official organization-defined parameters

Tailoring decisions required

Resolve these values through the governing organization’s approved tailoring and risk-management process before declaring the requirement implemented.

environments or resourcesorganization-defined environments or resourcesenvironments or resources that may contain or be related to anomalous or suspected adversarial behavior are defined.

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 Behavior Analysis 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 prepared detection, coordinated response, reporting, recovery, and lessons learned for incidents involving CUI.

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

incident response plans and playbooks
case records and timelines
exercise and tabletop results
lessons-learned and corrective-action tracking

Common failure patterns

plans that do not match the current architecture
unclear authority for containment decisions
evidence lost during response
lessons learned recorded but not implemented

Official NIST SP 800-172A content

Assessment objectives and methods

Assessment objectives (1)

anomalous or suspected adversarial behavior in or related to [Organization-defined: environments or resources] is analyzed.

Examine

Incident response policy
procedures addressing system monitoring tools and techniques
incident response plan
system monitoring logs or records
system monitoring tools and techniques documentation
system configuration settings and associated documentation
system security plan
system component inventory
network diagram
system protocols documentation
list of acceptable thresholds for false positives and false negatives
other relevant documents or records

Interview

Personnel with information security responsibilities
system/network administrators

Test

Processes for detecting anomalous behavior

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 controlIR-4(13)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.