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nist risk management framework 800-37

NIST Security Framework

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The closest thing to a “NIST Security Framework” is the NIST risk management framework 800-37, Guide for Applying the Risk Management Framework to Federal Information Systems (revision 1)

DIARMF is based on this NIST Security Framework.  It has 6 steps: Categorize, Select, Implement, Assess, Authorize and Continuous Monitor.

risk management framework steps
NIST Security Framework

NIST Security Framework – Step 1. Categorize

The first risk management framework step is categorization.   Categorization is done by the system owner with FIPS 199 and NIST 800-60.

NIST Security Framework – Step 2. Select

Selection of security controls is done with FIPS 200 and NIST SP 800-53, More on DIARMF – Select

NIST Security Framework – Step 3. Implement

Using the System Security Plan developed during steps 1 and 2, the organization responsible for the categorized system can begin implementation of the selected security controls.

More on DIARMF – Implement

NIST Security Framework – Step 4. Assess

After the security controls are implemented, step 4 is used to assess those controls.  This is done using NIST SP 800-53A, Guide for Assessing the Security Controls in Federal Information Systems and Organizations.

More on DIARMF – Assess

NIST Security Framework – Step 5. Authorize

In step 5, an Authorizing Official makes a formal, written acceptance of the risks. 

More on DIARMF – Authorization

NIST Security Framework – Step 6. Continuous Monitoring

Maintaining the security posture of the network / system mean doing continuous monitoring.

More on DIARMF – Continuous Monitoring

 

Risk Management Principles

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Risk management principles can be found in ISO 31000:2009,  Risk management – Principles and guidelines and its companion guides ISO Guide 73:2009, Risk management – Vocabulary with has a collection of definitions relevant to the management of risk.  ISO/IEC 31010:2009, Risk management – Risk assessment techniques focuses on risk.

Other documents with risk management principles include NIST SP 800-39,  and NIST SP 800-30.

The principle of risk management center around looking at corporate risk.  What is the risk to the bottom-line of the organization?  Whether the bottom-line is money, reputation, a mission, or process.  How will the organization address risk from the top down?  Risk is addressed at every level of the organization from the very top to the bottom.  NIST 800-39 breaks this all down in tiers.

Risk management principles
Risk management principles

To address the actual risk and organization must be able to predict the likelihood of a harmful event (threat) adversely affecting an asset vulnerability.

Risk = ((Vulnerability * Threat) / Countermeasure) * Asset Value at Risk IT Risk

An organization uses a quantitative approach to analyzing and managing the risk to its resources.  To do this, they must identify the threat, the asset, the vulnerability and countermeasures (security controls) of the asset.  They must determine the level of impact that the organization would suffer if the harmful event occurs.  To determine all this they must do risk assessments.

 

 

business risk

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You should deal with business risk BEFORE disaster strikes.

Business risk deal with negative impacts to an organizations bottom line.  If harm should strike exposed weaknesses, the business needs to know how they will deal with it and how do they adjust to the situation.

A Business Impact Analysis (BIA) is sometimes done to identify the threats, vulnerabilities, assess, the likelihood of threats acting on identified weakness and the impact if they do.  DIARMF pulls for NIST and the NIST is robust enough to address address BIA / business risks.  The main documents dealing with business risks are 800-39, 800-30, and 800-34.

NIST SP 800-39, Manage Information Security Risk deals with the process of business risks by way of explaining the risk management necessary for an organization.

NIST SP 800-30, Guide for Conducted Risk Assessment describe the tasks and steps of business impact assessments:

A Business Impact Analysis (BIA) identifies high-value assets and adverse impacts with respect to the loss of integrity or availability. DHS Federal Continuity Directive 2 provides guidance on BIAs at the organization and mission/business process levels of the risk management hierarchy, respectively.

NIST Special Publication 800-34 provides guidance on BIAs at the information system level of the risk management hierarchy.

One of the biggest business risks capture while doing business impact assessments is interruptions of service.  After all, if the business is not DOING business then mission, work and revenue stop.  So the business/organization and or department must have  a contingency plan.  NIST Special Publication 800-34, Contingency Planning Guide for Federal Information Systems covers what to do in case of interruptions.

A contingency plan covers what to do in the event of service disruptions including procedures, and technical measures that can get systems back quickly for a while until the disruption passes.  NIST 800-34 covers information system contingency plans (ISCPs) who documents them and how. This is also a major part of the security controls addressed in 800-53/DIARMF.

 

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security risk

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NIST SP 800-39, Manage Information Security Risk

NIST SP 800-39 deals entirely with fixing the challenge of security risk in an organization.  Chapter 2 of 800-39 discusses the basics of security risk management & chapter 3 goes into the process of applying security risk management across and organization.

The Fundamentals of Security Risk Management (Chapter 2, 800-39)
The philosophy security risks and how to manage information security at multiple levels of an organization are discussed in Chpt 2 of NIST SP 800-39. The three layers of security risk are:

  1. Tier 1: Organization level
  2. Tier 2: Mission/Business Process level
  3. Tier 3: Information System level

Tier 1: Organization Level security risk management
Tier 1 addresses security risk from the organizations perspective. This include the implementation of the first component of security risk management which is called risk framing.

In tier 1 or security risk management, the management of the organization establishes governance structure that are in compliance with laws, regulations and policies. Tier 1 activities include establishment of the Risk Executive Function, establishment of the risk management strategy and determination of the risk tolerance.

 

Security Risk framing provides context for all the security risk activities within an organization, which affects the risk tasks of tier 1 & 2. The result of risk framing is Security Risk Management Strategy.

Security Risk Management Tier 2: Mission/Business Process 

Tier 2 Security risk management tasks include: 1) defining the mission processes. 2) Prioritize the mission process with respect to the long term goals of the organization. 3) Define the type of information needed to successfully execute the mission/business processes, critical/sensitivity of the information and the information flows both internal and external of the information.

 

Tier 3: Information System Security Risk management

From the information system perspective, tier 3 addresses the following tasks:

  1. Categorization of the information system
  2. Allocating the organizational security control
  3. Selection, implementation, assessment, authorization, and ongoing

Chapter 3 focuses on the step to have a comprehensive security risk management program. The tasks discussed include:

  • Risk Framing
  • Risk Assessing
  • Risk Response
  • Risk Monitoring

Risk Assessment

NIST 800-30 goes into Risk Assessment process.  800-39 covers from a high level.  Risk assessment is threat & vulnerability identification and risk determination. Organizational risk framing is a prerequisite to risk assessments, because methods of risk assessment must be established by the contexts of the organizations risk.

Risk Response
Risk response identifies, evaluates, decides on, and implements appropriate courses of action to accept, avoid, mitigate, share, or transfer risk to organizational operations and assets, individuals, other organizations, and the Nation, resulting from the operation and use of information systems.

Risk identification is key to risk response. Risk types include:
Risk accept- is the appropriate risk response when the identified risk is within the organizational risk tolerance. Organizations can accept risk deemed to be low, moderate, or high depending on particular situations or conditions.

Risk avoidance– Organizations may conduct certain types of activities or employ certain types of information technologies that result in risk that is unacceptable. In such situations, risk avoidance involves taking specific actions to eliminate the activities or technologies that are the basis for the risk or to revise or reposition these activities or technologies in the organizational mission/business processes to avoid the potential for unacceptable risk.

Risk mitigation-adding management, technical, administrative safeguards to minimize identified risks to the system.
Risk share & transfer- Risk sharing or risk transfer is the appropriate risk response when organizations desire and have the means to shift risk liability and responsibility to other organizations. Risk transfer shifts the entire risk responsibility or liability from one organization to another organization (e.g., using insurance to transfer risk from particular organizations to insurance
companies).

Risk Monitoring Risk changes with each modification of the system. It’s important to monitor the changes of the risk of a system. Changes to threats can also change risk.  This is where Continuous monitoring comes in.

risk management magazine

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I am looking for a decent risk management magazine online.  The first ones I found were  RM Risk Management Magazine (rmmagazine.com) from the Risk Management Society (rims.org) and RMProfessional (RMP).  RM is a little too broad since it included things like industrial, health, safety and insurance.  Similarly, RMProfessional (RMP) covers OTHER aspects of risk management. So for this site, our focus is security risk management.  While these are very serious risk management issues, I was hunting for a risk management magazine for Information Technology and Information Security.

risk management magazine-H9-BIBLE
risk management magazine H9-BIBLE

A more relevant SECURITY risk management magazine would be CSO Online (http://www.csoonline.com) which focuses on security risks.. not industrial, insurance and safety.  CSO covers security news, security jobs, data protetions, indentification & access, business continuity, security leadership and physical security.  I think that there name CSO is taken from Chief Security Officer.

Of course if you are calling ALL security magazines “risk management magazine” then there are thousands.  But I would not say that and online hacker magazine like Phrack was a risk management mag, but you could get away with calling it security.  There are many others such as 2600, Hack9 then there are pentesting online magazines like Pentest Mag.  All of these focus on the “threat” side of the risk scale.  Where the risks come from? How the threat exploit the vulnerability, how effective is the threat, what happens when the threat is implemented.  All of these could qualify as information security related sites by but not really risk managements.  Why?  Because they are missing one major piece.. Management.

 risk management magazine?

 

risk management guide

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If you are looking for a risk management guide there are several references text to choose from.  NIST SP 800-37, Risk Management Framework, ISO 31000:2009 Risk Management,  ISACA RISK IT Framework, and ITSG-33 are all pretty good risk management guides

NIST SP 800-37,  Guide for Applying the Risk Management 

The US federal government uses NIST SP 800-37.  The Defense Department uses DIARMF on which this site is based and DIARMF is based on NIST SP 800-37.  The document is comprehensive and branches in to several other documents:  NIST SP 800-39, Risk Management Security, NIST SP 800-30, Risk Assessment, NIST SP 800-53, Security controls and many others.  The NIST risk management guides were developed by National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in collaboration with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the Department of Defense (DOD), and the Committee on National Security Systems (CNSS).

ISO 31000:2009 Risk Management Guide

ISO 31000:2009, Risk Management is a practical guide designed for any organization.  Designed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 31000: 2009 offers a robust open standard for risk management framework.

 

ISACA RISK IT Framework

ISACA Risk IT Framework provides complete end to end guide for risk management of information technology addressing security threats exploiting asset vulnerabilities for corporations.

ITSG – IT Security Risk Management guide

Created by the Government of Canada’s, the ITSG is a IT Security Risk management guide ITSG-33 covers roles, responsibilities and activities of the Canadian risk management.