NIST Compliance Checklist: A Guide

Cybersecurity compliance goes beyond just meeting regulations. The point of security standards, like those from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), is to continuously defend your organization and customers against evolving threats. The NIST Cybersecurity Framework provides essential guidelines to help you manage risks and protect sensitive data effectively. Staying compliant should be a bonus to safeguarding your data.

This guide dives into the NIST compliance checklist, explores key standards like NIST 800-53 and NIST 800-171, and offers a practical road map to help you meet these requirements.

What Is NIST Compliance?

NIST compliance means adhering to the cybersecurity guidelines and standards developed by NIST. These guidelines offer a risk-based approach to managing cybersecurity, helping you implement industry-recognized best practices to safeguard sensitive data and reduce vulnerabilities.

NIST’s framework has five key elements: Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond, and Recover. Together, these elements create a lifecycle for addressing cybersecurity risks:

• Identify focuses on understanding and cataloging critical assets, risks, and vulnerabilities.
• Protect emphasizes measures like access controls and data encryption to defend against threats.
• Detect centers on monitoring systems for anomalies.
• Respond ensures effective handling of incidents to minimize damage.
• Recover is about restoring operations swiftly and strengthening defenses based on experience.

NIST Checklist and General Guidelines for Compliance

Implementing the standards and guidelines requires a structured approach. This checklist breaks down the essential NIST steps to help you proceed efficiently:

1. Conduct a Risk Assessment

Start by performing a thorough risk assessment to identify and evaluate your organization’s vulnerabilities. This step involves cataloging assets, recognizing potential threats, and analyzing their impact.

2. Create an Action-Oriented Response Policy

Develop a clear incident response policy, outlining roles, responsibilities, and actions during a cybersecurity incident. This way, your team can respond swiftly and recover operations with minimal damage. Regularly test and refine the policy to keep it actionable.

3. Establish a Cybersecurity Program Management Team

Create a dedicated team to manage and improve your organization's cybersecurity program based on NIST guidance. Include IT, security, legal, and management representatives to ensure department alignment, and assign clear roles and responsibilities.

4. Implement Security Controls

Security controls should match your risk assessment findings. Implement access management, encryption, and endpoint protection—whatever matches your systems’ needs and goals. Use NIST guidelines to tailor these controls to your organization.

When implementing these controls, consider applying the principle of least privilege to make sure only relevant employees can access important information. For businesses that develop software, this is a good time to implement the NIST Secure Software Development Framework (SSDF) guidelines as well.

5. Conduct Regular Security Training

Educate employees on their role in protecting assets and upholding cybersecurity best practices. Regular training helps employees recognize common threats like phishing and improve the organization’s security awareness.

6. Monitor and Detect Threats

Deploy continuous monitoring tools to identify anomalies and potential breaches in real time. Log monitoring, automated alerts, and behavioral analysis all help detect threats early and reduce the risk of escalation.

7. Develop and Test Recovery Plans

A recovery plan outlines steps to restore operations after an incident. Create one and test it regularly through simulated drills to make sure your team can execute it quickly when needed.

8. Maintain Comprehensive Documentation

Maintain detailed records of all policies, implemented controls, and response plans. A well-organized NIST audit checklist and thorough documentation streamline compliance audits and serve as reliable guides for identifying areas of improvement.

9. Perform Routine Audits and Assessments

Whenever you can, audit your security controls to identify gaps. Internal assessments, penetration testing, and third-party audits all help your organization strengthen its security posture and meet NIST requirements. Regular compliance attestation and reporting also demonstrate your organization's commitment to security standards.

10. Evaluate Third-Party Vendors

Ensure third-party vendors align with your cybersecurity policies and meet NIST standards. Assess their security controls, include compliance requirements in your agreements, and monitor their performance to avoid introducing new risks.

11. Continuously Improve Security Measures

Cyberthreats evolve, and so should your defenses. Treat NIST compliance as an ongoing process by consistently reviewing and enhancing policies, controls, and practices.

12. Stay Current With NIST Guidelines

NIST periodically updates its frameworks to address new cybersecurity challenges. Stay informed about the latest changes and integrate them into your compliance program to maintain effectiveness. Regular revision cycles ensure your security measures adapt to new threats while maintaining compliance with updated requirements.

Top NIST Cybersecurity Frameworks and Standards

These are several NIST standards within the framework that you have to keep in mind. Below are the most common ones, each designed to address organizations' specific challenges.

1. NIST 800-53

NIST Special Publication (SP) 800-53 offers an extensive inventory of security and privacy measures for federal information systems and organizations. It helps organizations protect systems and data by implementing tailored security controls based on risk, aligning the standards with individual security needs.

2. NIST 800-171

NIST 800-171 outlines the requirements for safeguarding controlled unclassified information (CUI) in non-federal systems and organizations. Businesses working with the government widely adopt it to secure sensitive data.

3. NIST 800-61

NIST 800-61, the Computer Security Incident Handling Guide, provides best practices for managing and responding to cybersecurity incidents. It helps organizations develop and refine incident response plans to handle threats effectively.

4. NIST 800-34

NIST 800-34 focuses on contingency planning, helping organizations prepare for unexpected disruptions and maintain operations during and after incidents.

5. NIST 800-37

NIST 800-37 provides a Risk Management Framework (RMF) that establishes a comprehensive process for managing cybersecurity risks. It helps organizations assess, implement, and continuously monitor security measures to align with risk management strategies.

Compliance Checklists by Framework: NIST 800-53 and NIST 800-171

Let’s dive deeper into the two most common standards, NIST 800-53 and NIST 800-171:

NIST 800-53

If an organization wants to manage federal data or CUI, it must comply with Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) requirements. NIST Special Publication 800-53 helps address FISMA through its comprehensive security control framework.

NIST 800-53 provides organizations with a structured approach to securing their systems and data. Its primary purpose is to ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of sensitive information systems. By offering a catalog of controls, NIST 800-53 enables organizations to address diverse cybersecurity challenges based on risk levels and operational needs.

NIST 800-53 Compliance Checklist

1. System categorization: Categorize information systems based on the potential impact of loss of confidentiality, integrity, and availability, as defined in the Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 199 and implemented through NIST SP 800-60. This determines the initial control baseline.
2. Select security controls: Using the RMF described in NIST SP 800-37, select and tailor appropriate security controls from the NIST 800-53 catalog based on the system categorization and a thorough risk assessment.
3. Implement security controls: Implement the selected controls within your systems and environment.
4. Assess security controls: Test and validate the controls to determine their effectiveness and document the assessment results.
5. Authorize system operation: Obtain authorization to operate the system based on the assessment results and an acceptable level of risk.
6. Monitor security controls: Monitor the implemented controls to detect changes, identify vulnerabilities, and maintain an acceptable risk posture.

NIST 800-171

NIST 800-171 safeguards CUI in non-federal systems and organizations. Its purpose is to protect sensitive data that isn’t classified but still requires strong security measures, especially for businesses working with government agencies.

The standard outlines 14 families of security requirements, covering everything from access control to incident response, ensuring comprehensive protection.

NIST 800-171 Compliance Checklist

1. Identify CUI: Identify where CUI resides within your systems. Map the flow of this data to understand where it is stored, processed, and transmitted.
2. Perform a security assessment: Assess your current security posture against the 110 security requirements outlined in NIST 800-171. This helps identify gaps and prioritize areas for improvement.
3. Develop baseline controls: Create a set of security controls tailored to NIST 800-171 requirements. These should address any gaps and provide a road map for implementation.
   Implement required controls: Apply security measures, such as encryption, access controls, and incident response procedures, across your systems. Make sure they align with the NIST 800-171 guidelines.
4. Document policies and procedures: Keep detailed records of your security policies, processes, and how the controls are being used.
5. Monitor and update regularly: Monitor systems and update security measures as needed. Regular reviews ensure ongoing compliance and help address new threats effectively.

Legit Security: NIST-Aligned ASPM

Legit Security’s advanced solutions empower your organization to strengthen its software supply chain security and align with NIST cybersecurity standards. Legit helps you map security guardrails to specific guidelines, like NIST’s. You’ll then benefit from real-time monitoring and alerts on compliance violation.

Whether safeguarding critical assets or enabling robust risk management practices, Legit offers valuable tools for building a resilient, NIST-aligned cybersecurity program. For more support, Legit Security's compliance and attestation trust center offers an industry-first solution designed to streamline your processes.