03.14.18E — Automated Organization-Generated Alerts

Official NIST requirement content

Security requirement

Alert [Organization-defined: personnel or roles] using [Organization-defined: automated mechanisms] when the following indications of inappropriate or unusual activities with security implications occur: [Organization-defined: activities].

Official NIST discussion

Discussion

Organization-generated alerts are focused on information sources that are external to the system, such as suspicious activity reports and reports on potential insider threats. Organizational personnel on the system alert notification list include system administrators, mission or business owners, system owners, chief information security officers, and system security officers. This requirement enhances SP 800-171 requirement 03.14.06.

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.

personnel or rolesorganization-defined personnel or rolespersonnel or roles to be alerted when indications of inappropriate or unusual activity with security implications occur are defined.

automated mechanismsorganization-defined automated mechanismsautomated mechanisms used to alert personnel or roles are defined.

activitiesorganization-defined activities that trigger alertsactivities that trigger alerts to personnel or roles 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 Automated Organization-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

Official NIST SP 800-172A content

Assessment objectives and methods

Assessment objectives (1)

[Organization-defined: personnel or roles] are alerted using [Organization-defined: automated mechanisms] when [Organization-defined: activities] indicate inappropriate or unusual activities with security implications.

Examine

System and information integrity policy
system and information integrity procedures
system security plan
list of inappropriate or unusual activities with security implications that trigger alerts
suspicious activity reports
system monitoring tools and techniques documentation
system design documentation
procedures addressing system monitoring tools and techniques
alerts provided to security personnel
system configuration settings and associated documentation
system monitoring logs or records
system audit records
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 responsible for the intrusion detection system
system/network administrators

Test

Processes for intrusion detection and system monitoring
automated mechanisms supporting and/or implementing intrusion detection and system monitoring capabilities
automated mechanisms supporting and/or implementing automated alerts to security personnel

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-4(12)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.