Control statement
Establish and institutionalize contact with selected groups and associations within the security and privacy communities:
- a.To facilitate ongoing security and privacy education and training for organizational personnel;
- b.To maintain currency with recommended security and privacy practices, techniques, and technologies; and
- c.To share current security and privacy information, including threats, vulnerabilities, and incidents.
Discussion
Ongoing contact with security and privacy groups and associations is important in an environment of rapidly changing technologies and threats. Groups and associations include special interest groups, professional associations, forums, news groups, users’ groups, and peer groups of security and privacy professionals in similar organizations. Organizations select security and privacy groups and associations based on mission and business functions. Organizations share threat, vulnerability, and incident information as well as contextual insights, compliance techniques, and privacy problems consistent with applicable laws, executive orders, directives, policies, regulations, standards, and guidelines.
From control text to operational evidence
Use Security and Privacy Groups and Associations as a testable risk decision. Translate the official statement into accountable people, repeatable processes, configured technology, and evidence that demonstrates the outcome over time. In this family, pay particular attention to enterprise program governance, accountability, resources, metrics, and organization-wide risk decisions.
Implementation workflow
- Define the control boundary, responsible owner, inherited portions, and systems or processes in scope.
- Resolve each organization-defined parameter before declaring the control implemented.
- Document how the implementation satisfies every clause of the official control statement.
- Collect evidence as a normal byproduct of operation rather than only before an assessment.
- Review exceptions, changes, and monitoring results on a risk-based cadence.
Evidence examples
- program charters and policies
- governance meeting records
- risk and performance metrics
- resource and responsibility assignments
Common failure patterns
- program metrics count activity instead of outcomes
- system-level risks never reach enterprise governance
- responsibilities assigned without authority or resources
- privacy and security managed in separate silos
Questions practitioners should ask
- What risk decision is this control intended to support in this system?
- Which parts are implemented locally, inherited, shared, or not applicable—and what evidence supports that decision?
- Do the documented narrative, deployed configuration, operating process, and collected evidence agree?
- What event or threshold requires the implementation to be reviewed or changed?
Assessment objectives and methods
Show the assessment objective
- PM-15a.
- PM-15a.[01]contact is established and institutionalized with selected groups and associations within the security community to facilitate ongoing security education and training for organizational personnel;
- PM-15a.[02]contact is established and institutionalized with selected groups and associations within the privacy community to facilitate ongoing privacy education and training for organizational personnel;
- PM-15b.
- PM-15b.[01]contact is established and institutionalized with selected groups and associations within the security community to maintain currency with recommended security practices, techniques, and technologies;
- PM-15b.[02]contact is established and institutionalized with selected groups and associations within the privacy community to maintain currency with recommended privacy practices, techniques, and technologies;
- PM-15c.
- PM-15c.[01]contact is established and institutionalized with selected groups and associations within the security community to share current security information, including threats, vulnerabilities, and incidents;
- PM-15c.[02]contact is established and institutionalized with selected groups and associations within the privacy community to share current privacy information, including threats, vulnerabilities, and incidents.
Examine
- Information security program plan
- privacy program plan
- risk management strategy
- procedures for establishing and institutionalizing contacts with security and privacy groups and associations
- lists or other records of contacts with and/or membership in security and privacy groups and associations
- other relevant documents or records
Interview
- Organizational personnel with information security and privacy program planning and plan implementation responsibilities
- organizational personnel responsible for establishing and institutionalizing contact with security and privacy groups and associations
- organizational personnel with information security and privacy responsibilities
- personnel from selected groups and associations with which the organization has established and institutionalized contact
Test
- Organizational processes for establishing and institutionalizing contact with security and privacy groups and associations
- mechanisms supporting contact with security and privacy groups and associations
Related controls
These relationships come from the official OSCAL catalog. They indicate useful dependencies or context, not automatic inheritance or equivalence.
Authoritative sources
Bare Metal Cyber is an independent educational publisher and is not affiliated with or endorsed by NIST. Official control requirements and interpretations remain with NIST and the responsible authorizing organization.