The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) is one of several “gold level” standards used by public and private organizations as the basis for their cybersecurity protocols. It is also the benchmark utilized by Trustwave to protect our clients. NIST rolled out the CSF in 2014 as a set of guidelines for mitigating organizational cybersecurity risks.

Since 2014, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), a U.S. federal agency, has issued guidelines for managing digital identities via Special Publication 800-63B. The latest revision (rev. 3) was released in 2017, and has been updated as recently as 2019. Revision 4 was made available for comment and review; however, revision 3 is still the standard as of the time of this blog post.

A weak password can easily become compromised by a cyberattacker, but employing multi-factor authentication (MFA) can stop a cyberattacker in their tracks. MFA is recommended as a best practice by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to reduce risk. Learn more about MFA and how it can protect your company from cyberattacks.

The NIST Cybersecurity Framework was meant to be a dynamic document that is continuously revised, enhanced, and updated. These upgrades allow the Framework to keep up with technological and threat developments, incorporate lessons learned, and transform best practices into standard procedures. NIST created the Framework in 2014 and updated it with CSF 1.1 in April 2018.

Have you noticed it’s never “Hey, someone got by a firewall” or “WOW, they bypassed the network security”? No. It’s always about the Device. It’s the same for hackers because everything else is just a means to an end, and that end is your Device! Imagine, late at night, driving around the Amusement Park security gate, then busting open the locked gated fence. These actions are necessary to get to the big score, the Rides! Yaaahoo!

‍ NIST Special Publication 800-171 (NIST SP 800-171 or NIST 800-171) is a set of security controls within the NIST Cybersecurity Framework that establishes baseline security standards for federal government organizations. NIST SP 800-171 is mandatory for all non-government organizations operating with federal information systems.

NIST SP 800-161 revision 1 outlines a cybersecurity framework for mitigating security risks in the supply chain. NIST SP-800-161 is a subset of NIST 800-53, a broader cyber risk mitigation framework that’s foundational to most cybersecurity programs. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) designed NIST 800-161 to improve cyber supply chain risk management for all U.S federal agencies.

‍NIST Special Publication 800-53 sets an exemplary standard for protecting sensitive data. Though originally designed for government agencies, the framework has become a popular inclusion in most security programs across a wide range of industries.