NIST SP 800-53 Learning Center
Study this control family as a connected set of risk outcomes, implementation decisions, evidence expectations, and assessment questions.
Control family
Use the family as a planning boundary, but assess each selected control against the system context, inherited services, organization-defined parameters, and evidence available from real operations.
Family catalog
Base controls open full profiles. Enhancement results link directly to the corresponding enhancement section on the parent control page.
System and services acquisition policy and procedures address the controls in the SA family that are implemented within systems and organizations. The risk management strategy is an important factor in establishing such policies and procedures. Policies and procedures contribute to security and privacy assurance. Therefore, it is important that security and
Resource allocation for information security and privacy includes funding for system and services acquisition, sustainment, and supply chain-related risks throughout the system development life cycle.
A system development life cycle process provides the foundation for the successful development, implementation, and operation of organizational systems. The integration of security and privacy considerations early in the system development life cycle is a foundational principle of systems security engineering and privacy engineering. To apply the required co
Security and privacy functional requirements are typically derived from the high-level security and privacy requirements described in [SA-2](#sa-2) . The derived requirements include security and privacy capabilities, functions, and mechanisms. Strength requirements associated with such capabilities, functions, and mechanisms include degree of correctness, c
System artifacts and documentation created by the developer helps organizational personnel understand the implementation and operation of controls. Organizations consider establishing specific measures to determine the quality and completeness of the content provided. System documentation may be used to delineate roles, responsibilities and expectations of t
NIST SP 800-53 SA-6 Software Usage Restrictions.
NIST SP 800-53 SA-7 User-installed Software.
Systems security and privacy engineering principles are closely related to and implemented throughout the system development life cycle (see [SA-3](#sa-3) ). Organizations can apply systems security and privacy engineering principles to new systems under development or to systems undergoing upgrades. For existing systems, organizations apply systems security
External system services are provided by an external provider, and the organization has no direct control over the implementation of the required controls or the assessment of control effectiveness. Organizations establish relationships with external service providers in a variety of ways, including through business partnerships, contracts, interagency agree
Organizations consider the quality and completeness of configuration management activities conducted by developers as direct evidence of applying effective security controls. Controls include protecting the master copies of material used to generate security-relevant portions of the system hardware, software, and firmware from unauthorized modification or de
Developmental testing and evaluation confirms that the required controls are implemented correctly, operating as intended, enforcing the desired security and privacy policies, and meeting established security and privacy requirements. Security properties of systems and the privacy of individuals may be affected by the interconnection of system components or
NIST SP 800-53 SA-12 Supply Chain Protection.
NIST SP 800-53 SA-13 Trustworthiness.
NIST SP 800-53 SA-14 Criticality Analysis.
Development tools include programming languages and computer-aided design systems. Reviews of development processes include the use of maturity models to determine the potential effectiveness of such processes. Maintaining the integrity of changes to tools and processes facilitates effective supply chain risk assessment and mitigation. Such integrity require
Developer-provided training applies to external and internal (in-house) developers. Training personnel is essential to ensuring the effectiveness of the controls implemented within organizational systems. Types of training include web-based and computer-based training, classroom-style training, and hands-on training (including micro-training). Organizations
Developer security and privacy architecture and design are directed at external developers, although they could also be applied to internal (in-house) development. In contrast, [PL-8](#pl-8) is directed at internal developers to ensure that organizations develop a security and privacy architecture that is integrated with the enterprise architecture. The dist
NIST SP 800-53 SA-18 Tamper Resistance and Detection.
NIST SP 800-53 SA-19 Component Authenticity.
Organizations determine that certain system components likely cannot be trusted due to specific threats to and vulnerabilities in those components for which there are no viable security controls to adequately mitigate risk. Reimplementation or custom development of such components may satisfy requirements for higher assurance and is carried out by initiating
Developer screening is directed at external developers. Internal developer screening is addressed by [PS-3](#ps-3) . Because the system, system component, or system service may be used in critical activities essential to the national or economic security interests of the United States, organizations have a strong interest in ensuring that developers are trus
Support for system components includes software patches, firmware updates, replacement parts, and maintenance contracts. An example of unsupported components includes when vendors no longer provide critical software patches or product updates, which can result in an opportunity for adversaries to exploit weaknesses in the installed components. Exceptions to
It is often necessary for a system or system component that supports mission-essential services or functions to be enhanced to maximize the trustworthiness of the resource. Sometimes this enhancement is done at the design level. In other instances, it is done post-design, either through modifications of the system in question or by augmenting the system with
Cyber resiliency is critical to ensuring the survivability of mission critical systems and high value assets. Cyber resiliency focuses on limiting the damage from adversity or the conditions that can cause a loss of assets. Damage can affect: (1) organizations (e.g., loss of reputation, increased existential risk); (2) missions or business functions (e.g., d
The preproduction environment includes development, test, and integration environments. The program protection planning processes established by the Department of Defense are examples of managing the preproduction environment for defense contractors. Criticality analysis and the application of controls on developers also contribute to a more secure system de
Live data is also referred to as operational data. The use of live or operational data in preproduction (i.e., development, test, and integration) environments can result in significant risks to organizations. In addition, the use of personally identifiable information in testing, research, and training increases the risk of unauthorized disclosure or misuse
Technology refresh planning may encompass hardware, software, firmware, processes, personnel skill sets, suppliers, service providers, and facilities. The use of obsolete or nearing obsolete technology may increase the security and privacy risks associated with unsupported components, counterfeit or repurposed components, components unable to implement secur
Functional properties of security and privacy controls describe the functionality (i.e., security or privacy capability, functions, or mechanisms) visible at the interfaces of the controls and specifically exclude functionality and data structures internal to the operation of the controls.
Organizations may require different levels of detail in the documentation for the design and implementation of controls in organizational systems, system components, or system services based on mission and business requirements, requirements for resiliency and trustworthiness, and requirements for analysis and testing. Systems can be partitioned into multipl
Following a system development life cycle that includes state-of-the-practice software development methods, systems engineering methods, systems security and privacy engineering methods, and quality control processes helps to reduce the number and severity of latent errors within systems, system components, and system services. Reducing the number and severi
NIST SP 800-53 enhancement SA-4(4) Assignment of Components to Systems.
Examples of security configurations include the U.S. Government Configuration Baseline (USGCB), Security Technical Implementation Guides (STIGs), and any limitations on functions, ports, protocols, and services. Security characteristics can include requiring that default passwords have been changed.
Commercial off-the-shelf IA or IA-enabled information technology products used to protect classified information by cryptographic means may be required to use NSA-approved key management. See [NSA CSFC](#3d575737-98cb-459d-b41c-d7e82b73ad78).
See [NIAP CCEVS](#795aff72-3e6c-4b6b-a80a-b14d84b7f544) for additional information on NIAP. See [NIST CMVP](#1acdc775-aafb-4d11-9341-dc6a822e9d38) for additional information on FIPS-validated cryptographic modules.
The objective of continuous monitoring plans is to determine if the planned, required, and deployed controls within the system, system component, or system service continue to be effective over time based on the inevitable changes that occur. Developer continuous monitoring plans include a sufficient level of detail such that the information can be incorpora
The identification of functions, ports, protocols, and services early in the system development life cycle (e.g., during the initial requirements definition and design stages) allows organizations to influence the design of the system, system component, or system service. This early involvement in the system development life cycle helps organizations avoid o
NIST SP 800-53 enhancement SA-5(1) Functional Properties of Security Controls.
NIST SP 800-53 enhancement SA-5(2) Security-relevant External System Interfaces.
NIST SP 800-53 enhancement SA-5(3) High-level Design.
NIST SP 800-53 enhancement SA-5(4) Low-level Design.
NIST SP 800-53 enhancement SA-5(5) Source Code.
The principle of clear abstractions states that a system has simple, well-defined interfaces and functions that provide a consistent and intuitive view of the data and how the data is managed. The clarity, simplicity, necessity, and sufficiency of the system interfaces— combined with a precise definition of their functional behavior—promotes ease of analysis
The principle of least common mechanism states that the amount of mechanism common to more than one user and depended on by all users is minimized [POPEK74](#79453f84-26a4-4995-8257-d32d37aefea3) . Mechanism minimization implies that different components of a system refrain from using the same mechanism to access a system resource. Every shared mechanism (es
The principles of modularity and layering are fundamental across system engineering disciplines. Modularity and layering derived from functional decomposition are effective in managing system complexity by making it possible to comprehend the structure of the system. Modular decomposition, or refinement in system design, is challenging and resists general st
The principle of partially ordered dependencies states that the synchronization, calling, and other dependencies in the system are partially ordered. A fundamental concept in system design is layering, whereby the system is organized into well-defined, functionally related modules or components. The layers are linearly ordered with respect to inter-layer dep
The principle of efficiently mediated access states that policy enforcement mechanisms utilize the least common mechanism available while satisfying stakeholder requirements within expressed constraints. The mediation of access to system resources (i.e., CPU, memory, devices, communication ports, services, infrastructure, data, and information) is often the
The principle of minimized sharing states that no computer resource is shared between system components (e.g., subjects, processes, functions) unless it is absolutely necessary to do so. Minimized sharing helps to simplify system design and implementation. In order to protect user-domain resources from arbitrary active entities, no resource is shared unless
The principle of reduced complexity states that the system design is as simple and small as possible. A small and simple design is more understandable, more analyzable, and less prone to error. The reduced complexity principle applies to any aspect of a system, but it has particular importance for security due to the various analyses performed to obtain evid
The principle of secure evolvability states that a system is developed to facilitate the maintenance of its security properties when there are changes to the system’s structure, interfaces, interconnections (i.e., system architecture), functionality, or configuration (i.e., security policy enforcement). Changes include a new, enhanced, or upgraded system cap
The principle of trusted components states that a component is trustworthy to at least a level commensurate with the security dependencies it supports (i.e., how much it is trusted to perform its security functions by other components). This principle enables the composition of components such that trustworthiness is not inadvertently diminished and the trus
Information security services include the operation of security devices, such as firewalls or key management services as well as incident monitoring, analysis, and response. Risks assessed can include system, mission or business, security, privacy, or supply chain risks.
Information from external service providers regarding the specific functions, ports, protocols, and services used in the provision of such services can be useful when the need arises to understand the trade-offs involved in restricting certain functions and services or blocking certain ports and protocols.
Trust relationships between organizations and external service providers reflect the degree of confidence that the risk from using external services is at an acceptable level. Trust relationships can help organizations gain increased levels of confidence that service providers are providing adequate protection for the services rendered and can also be useful
As organizations increasingly use external service providers, it is possible that the interests of the service providers may diverge from organizational interests. In such situations, simply having the required technical, management, or operational controls in place may not be sufficient if the providers that implement and manage those controls are not opera
The location of information processing, information and data storage, or system services can have a direct impact on the ability of organizations to successfully execute their mission and business functions. The impact occurs when external providers control the location of processing, storage, or services. The criteria that external providers use for the sel
Maintaining exclusive control of cryptographic keys in an external system prevents decryption of organizational data by external system staff. Organizational control of cryptographic keys can be implemented by encrypting and decrypting data inside the organization as data is sent to and received from the external system or by employing a component that permi
Storage of organizational information in an external system could limit visibility into the security status of its data. The ability of the organization to verify and validate the integrity of its stored data without transferring it out of the external system provides such visibility.
The geographic location of information processing and data storage can have a direct impact on the ability of organizations to successfully execute their mission and business functions. A compromise or breach of high impact information and systems can have severe or catastrophic adverse impacts on organizational assets and operations, individuals, other orga
Software and firmware integrity verification allows organizations to detect unauthorized changes to software and firmware components using developer-provided tools, techniques, and mechanisms. The integrity checking mechanisms can also address counterfeiting of software and firmware components. Organizations verify the integrity of software and firmware comp
Alternate configuration management processes may be required when organizations use commercial off-the-shelf information technology products. Alternate configuration management processes include organizational personnel who review and approve proposed changes to systems, system components, and system services and conduct security and privacy impact analyses
Hardware integrity verification allows organizations to detect unauthorized changes to hardware components using developer-provided tools, techniques, methods, and mechanisms. Organizations may verify the integrity of hardware components with hard-to-copy labels, verifiable serial numbers provided by developers, and by requiring the use of anti-tamper techno
The trusted generation of descriptions, source code, and object code addresses authorized changes to hardware, software, and firmware components between versions during development. The focus is on the efficacy of the configuration management process by the developer to ensure that newly generated versions of security-relevant hardware descriptions, source c
Mapping integrity for version control addresses changes to hardware, software, and firmware components during both initial development and system development life cycle updates. Maintaining the integrity between the master copies of security-relevant hardware, software, and firmware (including designs, hardware drawings, source code) and the equivalent data
The trusted distribution of security-relevant hardware, software, and firmware updates help to ensure that the updates are correct representations of the master copies maintained by the developer and have not been tampered with during distribution.
Information security and privacy representatives can include system security officers, senior agency information security officers, senior agency officials for privacy, and system privacy officers. Representation by personnel with information security and privacy expertise is important because changes to system configurations can have unintended side effects
Static code analysis provides a technology and methodology for security reviews and includes checking for weaknesses in the code as well as for the incorporation of libraries or other included code with known vulnerabilities or that are out-of-date and not supported. Static code analysis can be used to identify vulnerabilities and enforce secure coding pract
Systems, system components, and system services may deviate significantly from the functional and design specifications created during the requirements and design stages of the system development life cycle. Therefore, updates to threat modeling and vulnerability analyses of those systems, system components, and system services during development and prior t
Independent agents have the qualifications—including the expertise, skills, training, certifications, and experience—to verify the correct implementation of developer security and privacy assessment plans.
Manual code reviews are usually reserved for the critical software and firmware components of systems. Manual code reviews are effective at identifying weaknesses that require knowledge of the application’s requirements or context that, in most cases, is unavailable to automated analytic tools and techniques, such as static and dynamic analysis. The benefits
Penetration testing is an assessment methodology in which assessors, using all available information technology product or system documentation and working under specific constraints, attempt to circumvent the implemented security and privacy features of information technology products and systems. Useful information for assessors who conduct penetration tes
Attack surfaces of systems and system components are exposed areas that make those systems more vulnerable to attacks. Attack surfaces include any accessible areas where weaknesses or deficiencies in the hardware, software, and firmware components provide opportunities for adversaries to exploit vulnerabilities. Attack surface reviews ensure that developers
Verifying that testing and evaluation provides complete coverage of required controls can be accomplished by a variety of analytic techniques ranging from informal to formal. Each of these techniques provides an increasing level of assurance that corresponds to the degree of formality of the analysis. Rigorously demonstrating control coverage at the highest
Dynamic code analysis provides runtime verification of software programs using tools capable of monitoring programs for memory corruption, user privilege issues, and other potential security problems. Dynamic code analysis employs runtime tools to ensure that security functionality performs in the way it was designed. A type of dynamic analysis, known as fuz
Interactive (also known as instrumentation-based) application security testing is a method of detecting vulnerabilities by observing applications as they run during testing. The use of instrumentation relies on direct measurements of the actual running applications and uses access to the code, user interaction, libraries, frameworks, backend connections, and
NIST SP 800-53 enhancement SA-12(1) Acquisition Strategies / Tools / Methods.
NIST SP 800-53 enhancement SA-12(2) Supplier Reviews.
NIST SP 800-53 enhancement SA-12(3) Trusted Shipping and Warehousing.
NIST SP 800-53 enhancement SA-12(4) Diversity of Suppliers.
NIST SP 800-53 enhancement SA-12(5) Limitation of Harm.
NIST SP 800-53 enhancement SA-12(6) Minimizing Procurement Time.
NIST SP 800-53 enhancement SA-12(7) Assessments Prior to Selection / Acceptance / Update.
NIST SP 800-53 enhancement SA-12(8) Use of All-source Intelligence.
NIST SP 800-53 enhancement SA-12(9) Operations Security.
NIST SP 800-53 enhancement SA-14(1) Critical Components with No Viable Alternative Sourcing.
Organizations use quality metrics to establish acceptable levels of system quality. Metrics can include quality gates, which are collections of completion criteria or sufficiency standards that represent the satisfactory execution of specific phases of the system development project. For example, a quality gate may require the elimination of all compiler war
System development teams select and deploy security and privacy tracking tools, including vulnerability or work item tracking systems that facilitate assignment, sorting, filtering, and tracking of completed work items or tasks associated with development processes.
Criticality analysis performed by the developer provides input to the criticality analysis performed by organizations. Developer input is essential to organizational criticality analysis because organizations may not have access to detailed design documentation for system components that are developed as commercial off-the-shelf products. Such design documen
NIST SP 800-53 enhancement SA-15(4) Threat Modeling and Vulnerability Analysis.
Attack surface reduction is closely aligned with threat and vulnerability analyses and system architecture and design. Attack surface reduction is a means of reducing risk to organizations by giving attackers less opportunity to exploit weaknesses or deficiencies (i.e., potential vulnerabilities) within systems, system components, and system services. Attack
Developers of systems, system components, and system services consider the effectiveness and efficiency of their development processes for meeting quality objectives and addressing the security and privacy capabilities in current threat environments.
Automated tools can be more effective at analyzing exploitable weaknesses or deficiencies in large and complex systems, prioritizing vulnerabilities by severity, and providing recommendations for risk mitigations.
Analysis of vulnerabilities found in similar software applications can inform potential design and implementation issues for systems under development. Similar systems or system components may exist within developer organizations. Vulnerability information is available from a variety of public and private sector sources, including the NIST National Vulnerabi
NIST SP 800-53 enhancement SA-15(9) Use of Live Data.
Formal models describe specific behaviors or security and privacy policies using formal languages, thus enabling the correctness of those behaviors and policies to be formally proven. Not all components of systems can be modeled. Generally, formal specifications are scoped to the behaviors or policies of interest, such as nondiscretionary access control poli
The security-relevant hardware, software, and firmware represent the portion of the system, component, or service that is trusted to perform correctly to maintain required security properties.
Correspondence is an important part of the assurance gained through modeling. It demonstrates that the implementation is an accurate transformation of the model, and that any additional code or implementation details that are present have no impact on the behaviors or policies being modeled. Formal methods can be used to show that the high-level security pro
Correspondence is an important part of the assurance gained through modeling. It demonstrates that the implementation is an accurate transformation of the model, and that additional code or implementation detail has no impact on the behaviors or policies being modeled. Consistency between the descriptive top-level specification (i.e., high-level/low-level de
The principle of reduced complexity states that the system design is as simple and small as possible (see [SA-8(7)](#sa-8.7) ). A small and simple design is easier to understand and analyze and is also less prone to error (see [AC-25](#ac-25), [SA-8(13)](#sa-8.13) ). The principle of reduced complexity applies to any aspect of a system, but it has particular
Applying the security design principles in [SP 800-160-1](#e3cc0520-a366-4fc9-abc2-5272db7e3564) promotes complete, consistent, and comprehensive testing and evaluation of systems, system components, and services. The thoroughness of such testing contributes to the evidence produced to generate an effective assurance case or argument as to the trustworthines
The principle of least privilege states that each component is allocated sufficient privileges to accomplish its specified functions but no more (see [SA-8(14)](#sa-8.14) ). Applying the principle of least privilege limits the scope of the component’s actions, which has two desirable effects. First, the security impact of a failure, corruption, or misuse of
Security resources that are distributed, located at different layers or in different system elements, or are implemented to support different aspects of trustworthiness can interact in unforeseen or incorrect ways. Adverse consequences can include cascading failures, interference, or coverage gaps. Coordination of the behavior of security resources (e.g., by
Design diversity is achieved by supplying the same requirements specification to multiple developers, each of whom is responsible for developing a variant of the system or system component that meets the requirements. Variants can be in software design, in hardware design, or in both hardware and a software design. Differences in the designs of the variants
NIST SP 800-53 enhancement SA-18(1) Multiple Phases of System Development Life Cycle.
NIST SP 800-53 enhancement SA-18(2) Inspection of Systems or Components.
NIST SP 800-53 enhancement SA-19(1) Anti-counterfeit Training.
NIST SP 800-53 enhancement SA-19(2) Configuration Control for Component Service and Repair.
NIST SP 800-53 enhancement SA-19(3) Component Disposal.
NIST SP 800-53 enhancement SA-19(4) Anti-counterfeit Scanning.
NIST SP 800-53 enhancement SA-21(1) Validation of Screening.
NIST SP 800-53 enhancement SA-22(1) Alternative Sources for Continued Support.
Products on the FIPS 201-approved products list meet NIST requirements for Personal Identity Verification (PIV) of Federal Employees and Contractors. PIV cards are used for multi-factor authentication in systems and organizations.
When, by contract, an organization provides for the operation of a system of records to accomplish an organizational mission or function, the organization, consistent with its authority, causes the requirements of the [PRIVACT](#18e71fec-c6fd-475a-925a-5d8495cf8455) to be applied to the system of records.
Contractors who operate a system that contains data owned by an organization initiating the contract have policies and procedures in place to remove the data from their systems and/or return the data in a time frame defined by the contract.
The principle of hierarchical trust for components builds on the principle of trusted components and states that the security dependencies in a system will form a partial ordering if they preserve the principle of trusted components. The partial ordering provides the basis for trustworthiness reasoning or an assurance case (assurance argument) when composing
The principle of inverse modification threshold builds on the principle of trusted components and the principle of hierarchical trust and states that the degree of protection provided to a component is commensurate with its trustworthiness. As the trust placed in a component increases, the protection against unauthorized modification of the component also in
The principle of hierarchical protection states that a component need not be protected from more trustworthy components. In the degenerate case of the most trusted component, it protects itself from all other components. For example, if an operating system kernel is deemed the most trustworthy component in a system, then it protects itself from all untrusted
The principle of minimized security elements states that the system does not have extraneous trusted components. The principle of minimized security elements has two aspects: the overall cost of security analysis and the complexity of security analysis. Trusted components are generally costlier to construct and implement, owing to the increased rigor of deve
The principle of least privilege states that each system component is allocated sufficient privileges to accomplish its specified functions but no more. Applying the principle of least privilege limits the scope of the component’s actions, which has two desirable effects: the security impact of a failure, corruption, or misuse of the component will have a mi
The principle of predicate permission states that system designers consider requiring multiple authorized entities to provide consent before a highly critical operation or access to highly sensitive data, information, or resources is allowed to proceed. [SALTZER75](#c9495d6e-ef64-4090-8509-e58c3b9009ff) originally named predicate permission the separation of
The principle of self-reliant trustworthiness states that systems minimize their reliance on other systems for their own trustworthiness. A system is trustworthy by default, and any connection to an external entity is used to supplement its function. If a system were required to maintain a connection with another external entity in order to maintain its trus
The principle of secure distributed composition states that the composition of distributed components that enforce the same system security policy result in a system that enforces that policy at least as well as the individual components do. Many of the design principles for secure systems deal with how components can or should interact. The need to create o
The principle of trusted communication channels states that when composing a system where there is a potential threat to communications between components (i.e., the interconnections between components), each communication channel is trustworthy to a level commensurate with the security dependencies it supports (i.e., how much it is trusted by other componen
The principle of continuous protection states that components and data used to enforce the security policy have uninterrupted protection that is consistent with the security policy and the security architecture assumptions. No assurances that the system can provide the confidentiality, integrity, availability, and privacy protections for its design capabilit
The principle of secure metadata management states that metadata are "first class" objects with respect to security policy when the policy requires either complete protection of information or that the security subsystem be self-protecting. The principle of secure metadata management is driven by the recognition that a system, subsystem, or component cannot
The principle of self-analysis states that a system component is able to assess its internal state and functionality to a limited extent at various stages of execution, and that this self-analysis capability is commensurate with the level of trustworthiness invested in the system. At the system level, self-analysis can be achieved through hierarchical assess
The principle of accountability and traceability states that it is possible to trace security-relevant actions (i.e., subject-object interactions) to the entity on whose behalf the action is being taken. The principle of accountability and traceability requires a trustworthy infrastructure that can record details about actions that affect system security (e.
The principle of secure defaults states that the default configuration of a system (including its constituent subsystems, components, and mechanisms) reflects a restrictive and conservative enforcement of security policy. The principle of secure defaults applies to the initial (i.e., default) configuration of a system as well as to the security engineering a
The principle of secure failure and recovery states that neither a failure in a system function or mechanism nor any recovery action in response to failure leads to a violation of security policy. The principle of secure failure and recovery parallels the principle of continuous protection to ensure that a system is capable of detecting (within limits) actua
The principle of economic security states that security mechanisms are not costlier than the potential damage that could occur from a security breach. This is the security-relevant form of the cost-benefit analyses used in risk management. The cost assumptions of cost-benefit analysis prevent the system designer from incorporating security mechanisms of grea
The principle of performance security states that security mechanisms are constructed so that they do not degrade system performance unnecessarily. Stakeholder and system design requirements for performance and security are precisely articulated and prioritized. For the system implementation to meet its design requirements and be found acceptable to stakehol
The principle of human factored security states that the user interface for security functions and supporting services is intuitive, user-friendly, and provides feedback for user actions that affect such policy and its enforcement. The mechanisms that enforce security policy are not intrusive to the user and are designed not to degrade user efficiency. Secur
The principle of acceptable security requires that the level of privacy and performance that the system provides is consistent with the users’ expectations. The perception of personal privacy may affect user behavior, morale, and effectiveness. Based on the organizational privacy policy and the system design, users should be able to restrict their actions to
The principle of repeatable and documented procedures states that the techniques and methods employed to construct a system component permit the same component to be completely and correctly reconstructed at a later time. Repeatable and documented procedures support the development of a component that is identical to the component created earlier, which may
The principle of procedural rigor states that the rigor of a system life cycle process is commensurate with its intended trustworthiness. Procedural rigor defines the scope, depth, and detail of the system life cycle procedures. Rigorous system life cycle procedures contribute to the assurance that the system is correct and free of unintended functionality i
The principle of secure system modification states that system modification maintains system security with respect to the security requirements and risk tolerance of stakeholders. Upgrades or modifications to systems can transform secure systems into systems that are not secure. The procedures for system modification ensure that if the system is to maintain
The principle of sufficient documentation states that organizational personnel with responsibilities to interact with the system are provided with adequate documentation and other information such that the personnel contribute to rather than detract from system security. Despite attempts to comply with principles such as human factored security and acceptabl
The principle of minimization states that organizations should only process personally identifiable information that is directly relevant and necessary to accomplish an authorized purpose and should only maintain personally identifiable information for as long as is necessary to accomplish the purpose. Organizations have processes in place, consistent with a
NIST SP 800-53 enhancement SA-12(10) Validate as Genuine and Not Altered.
NIST SP 800-53 enhancement SA-12(11) Penetration Testing / Analysis of Elements, Processes, and Actors.
NIST SP 800-53 enhancement SA-12(12) Inter-organizational Agreements.
NIST SP 800-53 enhancement SA-12(13) Critical Information System Components.
NIST SP 800-53 enhancement SA-12(14) Identity and Traceability.
NIST SP 800-53 enhancement SA-12(15) Processes to Address Weaknesses or Deficiencies.
The incident response plan provided by developers may provide information not readily available to organizations and be incorporated into organizational incident response plans. Developer information may also be extremely helpful, such as when organizations respond to vulnerabilities in commercial off-the-shelf products.
Archiving system or system components requires the developer to retain key development artifacts, including hardware specifications, source code, object code, and relevant documentation from the development process that can provide a readily available configuration baseline for system and component upgrades or modifications.
Organizations can minimize the risk to an individual’s privacy by using techniques such as de-identification or synthetic data. Limiting the use of personally identifiable information in development and test environments helps reduce the level of privacy risk created by a system.
In support of better incident response and the ability to more quickly reconstruct security-related actions, identifying specific requirements for secure logging facilitates the ability to connect application-produced audit event logs with operational data. Event types are consistent with the event types defined in [AU-02](#au-2).
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Planned Academy connection
These titles come from the approved NIST SP 800-53 course plan. They are shown as planned coverage and do not claim a public lesson URL before publication.
