NIST has now finalized its guidance providing important information on selecting both security and privacy control baselines for the Federal Government. The guidance is available here: Special Publication 800-53B, Control Baselines for Information Systems and Organizations. As we previously discussed when the draft version was released, these control baselines are from NIST Special Publication 800-53, and have been moved to this separate publication as a consolidated catalog of privacy and security controls. While the implementation of a minimum set of controls is required for protecting federal information systems, NIST envisions that these control baselines can be implemented by any organization that processes, stores, or transmits information.

The overall purpose and intent of the guidance has not changed since we last reviewed the draft guidance, which you can review here. However, edits were made in the finalization process and this final version should be thoughtfully reviewed when implementing the control baselines.

Putting it Into Practice: Now that this guidance is final, federal contractors should review carefully as these new security and privacy baselines will be applied to any federal information system used or operated by a contractor on behalf of an agency, or another organization on behalf of an agency. Companies in the private sector should pay attention as well, as NIST guidance is often used as a basis for industry standards in security and privacy.