03.14.09E — Cryptographic Protection

Official NIST requirement content

Security requirement

Implement cryptographic mechanisms to detect unauthorized changes to software, firmware, and information.

Official NIST discussion

Discussion

Cryptographic mechanisms used to protect integrity include digital signatures and the computation and application of signed hashes using asymmetric cryptography, protecting the confidentiality of the key used to generate the hash, and using the public key to verify the hash information. Organizations that use cryptographic mechanisms also consider cryptographic key management solutions. This requirement does not enhance a specific requirement in SP 800-171 but can be used to strengthen the protection of CUI associated with critical programs or high value assets.

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

PS-PRAPenetration-Resistant Architecture

Bare Metal Cyber interpretation

Implementation perspective

Treat Cryptographic Protection 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 flaw remediation, malicious-code protection, monitoring, integrity, and trustworthy handling of 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

patch and remediation records
malware protection configuration
monitoring alerts and response records
integrity validation and exception reports

Common failure patterns

patch compliance hiding unsupported assets
alerts generated without response ownership
exceptions that never expire
integrity monitoring excluding critical configurations

Official NIST SP 800-172A content

Assessment objectives and methods

Assessment objectives (3)

cryptographic mechanisms are implemented to detect unauthorized changes to software.
cryptographic mechanisms are implemented to detect unauthorized changes to firmware.
cryptographic mechanisms are implemented to detect unauthorized changes to information.

Examine

System and information integrity policy
system and information integrity procedures
procedures addressing software, firmware, and information integrity
system design documentation
system configuration settings and associated documentation
system audit records
system security plan
cryptographic mechanisms and associated documentation
records of detected unauthorized changes to software, firmware, and information
other relevant documents or records

Interview

Personnel responsible for software, firmware, and/or information integrity
personnel with information security responsibilities
system/network administrators
system developers

Test

Software, firmware, and information integrity verification tools
cryptographic mechanisms implementing software, firmware, and information integrity

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 controlSI-7(6)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.