NIST SP 800 – 171 abbreviates for National Institute of Standards and Technology Special Publication 800 – 171. It is also known as Protecting Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) in Nonfederal Systems and Organizations. The federal agencies get a way to ensure the safety of the CUI through the NIST 800 – 171 guidelines. The federal agencies realize the importance of the confidentiality of the CUI in terms of fulfilling their missions successfully.
Why is NIST 800 – 171 compliance for federal contractors in Orlando, FL, important?
The US government relies heavily on external contractors and suppliers. It has to share confidential information with those suppliers to fulfill the missions successfully. The delivery of products and services by non-federal agencies to the US government requires processing, transmission, and storage of sensitive information. The NIST 800 – 171 framework is important because it protects this sensitive information. It bounds all external contractors and suppliers to implement necessary changes to their security systems to keep the protection of the CUI updated.
How can a contractor ensure NIST 800 – 171 compliance for federal contractors in Orlando, FL?
All external contractors and subcontractors are required to implement the guidelines mentioned in the NIST 800 – 171 framework. They have to create a System Security Plan (SSP). This plan should describe how the guidelines will be met by a contractor. The contractors also have to document a plan of action for unimplemented security requirements. They can document these two plans in a single document or separate documents. After the successful documentation of these plans, the contractors are required to submit them to the relevant federal agencies. The decision related to the NIST 800 – 171 compliance for federal contractors in Orlando, FL, will be taken by the federal officials.
14 requirement categories in NIST 800 – 171
There are fourteen (14) families of requirements included in the NIST 800 – 171 framework. Here are those families: -
- Access Control
- Awareness Training
- Audit and Accountability
- Configuration Management
- Identification and Authentication
- Incident Response
- Maintenance
- Media Protection
- Personnel Security
- Physical Protection
- Risk Assessment
- Security Assessment
- System and Communications Protection
- System and Information Integrity
Which Organization did issue NIST 800 – 171?
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) published NIST 800 – 171. NIST is a non-regulatory agency of the Department of Commerce. NIST aims to promote and maintain security standards at the federal level. There are several other security standards created by NIST including NIST SP 800 – 51 and FISMA (Federal Information Security Management Act). It is also working on the development of the Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS).
The federal contractors based in Orlando, Florida, are advised to work with the right approach to achieve NIST 800 – 171 compliance for federal contractors in Orlando, FL. They must have to perform a gap analysis in order to get a roadmap towards success in the field of NIST 800 – 171 compliance.