NIST Security Guidance Revision: Prepare Now

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.informationweek.com/government/cybersecurity/nist-security-guidance-revision-prepare-now/a/d-id/1269663

By Vincent Berk
Commentary
InformationWeek.com
6/16/2014

The National Institute of Science and Technology's Special Publication 
800-53 aims to raise the bar and set a standard of security for federal 
government information processing systems. As NIST works on Revision 5 of 
the document, which is expected to come out in April 2015, it will need to 
reverse the sweeping generalizations made in Revision 4 regarding the 
nature of the threat against data. Network defense is not a spectator 
sport -- it must be engaged in continuously and consciously.

As a natural evolution of the NIST document, continuous monitoring and 
anomaly detection will likely play a more significant role in Revision 5. 
However, agencies should not wait until next April to shift focus towards 
understanding the specific threats to data through continuous monitoring. 
There is a great deal agencies can do to get a head start on the guidance 
and to prepare their systems and networks for the new version in advance.


Build an active defense

The rubber meets the road in active defense at strategic data acquisition 
-- collecting the information needed to understand the changing nature of 
the adversary. For a multi-faceted data acquisition approach, we must 
start by analyzing the key threat categories that we face.

The term "advanced persistent threat" has been overused in recent years, 
but it describes the most important type of attacker any government agency 
should prepare for. Government organizations are by definition the only 
high-valued target in their class -- after all, there is only one IRS or 
one Defense Department -- so there is no other "low-hanging fruit" for 
attackers to go after. This means targeted attackers will be stealthy and 
crafty in any offensive approach.

[...]



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