Security requirement
Alert [Organization-defined: personnel or roles] when the following system-generated indications of compromise or potential compromise occur: [Organization-defined: indicators of compromise].
Discussion
Alerts may be generated from different sources internal to the system, including audit records, inputs from malicious code protection mechanisms, intrusion detection or prevention mechanisms, or boundary protection devices such as firewalls, gateways, and routers. Compromise indicators could include CUI being accessed by unauthorized users or when CUI traverses architecture outside of defined data flows. Alerts can be automated and transmitted telephonically, by electronic mail messages, or by text messaging. Organizational personnel on the alert notification list can include system administrators, mission or business owners, system owners, information owners or stewards, chief information security officers, and system security officers. This requirement is sourced to a control tailored out of the SP 800-53B .13 moderate baseline in SP 800-171.
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 System-Generated Alerts 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
Assessment objectives and methods
Assessment objectives (1)
[Organization-defined: personnel or roles] are alerted when system-generated [Organization-defined: indicators of compromise] occur.
Examine
- System and information integrity policy
- system and information integrity procedures
- system security plan
- system audit records
- procedures addressing system monitoring tools and techniques
- system monitoring tools and techniques documentation
- list of personnel selected to receive alerts
- system configuration settings and associated documentation
- documentation of alerts generated based on compromise indicators
- other relevant documents or records
Interview
- Personnel with information security responsibilities
- system developers
- personnel installing, configuring, and/or maintaining the system
- personnel responsible for monitoring the system
- personnel on the system alert notification list
- personnel responsible for the intrusion detection system
- system/network administrators
Test
- Processes for intrusion detection and system monitoring
- mechanisms supporting and/or implementing intrusion detection and system monitoring capabilities
- mechanisms supporting and/or implementing alerts for compromise indicators
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.