03.10.01E — Intrusion Alarms and Surveillance Equipment

Official NIST requirement content

Security requirement

Monitor physical access to the facility where the system resides using physical intrusion alarms and surveillance equipment.

Official NIST discussion

Discussion

Physical intrusion alarms can be used to alert security personnel when unauthorized access to the facility is attempted. Alarm systems work in conjunction with physical barriers, physical access control systems, and facility security guards by triggering a response when these other forms of security have been compromised or breached. Physical intrusion alarms can include different types of sensor devices, including motion sensors, contact sensors, and broken glass sensors. Surveillance equipment includes video cameras installed at strategic locations throughout the facility. This requirement enhances SP 800-171 requirement 03.10.02.

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 Intrusion Alarms and Surveillance Equipment 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 physical access, facility protection, visitor accountability, and protection of system components that handle 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

badge and visitor logs
physical access reviews
facility diagrams and sensor records
environmental and power test results

Common failure patterns

logical controls undermined by physical access
tailgating or visitor exceptions normalized
critical infrastructure omitted from access reviews
environmental alarms disconnected from response

Official NIST SP 800-172A content

Assessment objectives and methods

Assessment objectives (2)

physical access to the facility where the system resides is monitored using physical intrusion alarms.
physical access to the facility where the system resides is monitored using physical surveillance equipment.

Examine

Physical and environmental protection policy
procedures addressing physical access monitoring
physical access monitoring records
physical access log reviews
physical access logs or records
system security plan
other relevant documents or records

Interview

Personnel with physical access monitoring responsibilities
personnel with incident response responsibilities
personnel with information security responsibilities

Test

Processes for monitoring physical intrusion alarms and surveillance equipment
mechanisms supporting and/or implementing physical intrusion alarms and surveillance equipment
mechanisms supporting and/or implementing physical access monitoring

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 controlPE-6(1)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.