From: InformationWeek/Government
NIST 800-53 Revision 5 will likely put more emphasis on continuous monitoring. Don’t wait until next year to close your security gaps.
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.
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