COMPLIANCE REQUIREMENTS
Achieving and Maintaining NIST Compliance
The National Institute of Standards Technology (NIST), which is a part of the U.S. Department of Commerce, supports all sizes of information and technology properties under various conditions. NIST 800-171 and NIST 800-53 are both publications from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) that provide guidelines and recommendations for information security controls.
NIST 800-171
The goal of NIST 800-171 is to offer guidance to federal agencies to protect sensitive federal information and data assets when it undergoes processing, storage and use outside of their primary federal government location and in non-federal information systems.
The federal government often works with non-governmental institutions and private entities in order to acquire knowledge, achieve a task or complete a project. In such cases, it is important that the various entities share data across networks, meaning that federal CUI is sometimes temporarily housed in places like higher education institutions. NIST 800-171 addresses the IT systems of the non-federal entities that store federal CUI or sensitive but unclassified information.
NIST 800-171 Compliance Assessment
Working with important federal CUI is important to your organization, but you want to make sure you do everything in your power to make sure you have peak security when handling that information. A NIST compliance assessment can help you and your staff feel more confident handling valuable federal data, thanks to the detailed standards of the regulation to help you achieve full compliance.
NIST 800-53
NIST 800-53 establishes a set of standards that guide federal agencies in managing the security of their information technology systems. The purpose of these standards is to safeguard both the data held by government agencies and the information of citizens. Compliance with NIST 800-53 is not only essential for federal agencies but also mandatory for any individual or business entity that operates as a contractor for the federal government.
NIST 800-53 Compliance Assessment
A NIST 800-53 assessment aims to evaluate an organization’s compliance with the set regulations. It helps ensure the organization has implemented appropriate controls to protect its information systems’ confidentiality, integrity, availability, and the data they process. Our team also identifies potential vulnerabilities and areas to support ongoing improvement when performing compliance assessments.
PROCESS
Steps to NIST Audit Success
Contractors often find it best to reach out to professional auditing firms to perform a NIST audit for a thorough and objective assessment of their system and internal controls. Our firm has experience with all types of regulations—HIPAA, GDPR, PCI, ISO—that may affect your assessment in some unexpected ways.
With our experience and confidence with NIST and other regulatory frameworks, we map and plan for overlaps in regulations with which your organization is required to comply.
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Expert NIST Compliance Guidance
The team at I.S. Partner can help make sure you achieve and maintain full compliance for the duration of your contracting engagement with a federal body. We can start by performing a gap analysis and strategic advisory to answer any questions you have in simply getting your system ready for such an engagement.
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