DISCUSSION [NIST SP 800-171 R2]
There are many publicly available sources of system security alerts and advisories. The United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) generates security alerts and advisories to maintain situational awareness across the federal government and in nonfederal organizations. Software vendors, subscription services, and relevant industry information sharing and analysis centers (ISACs) may also provide security alerts and advisories. Examples of response actions include notifying relevant external organizations, for example, external mission/business partners, supply chain partners, external service providers, and peer or supporting organizations.
FURTHER DISCUSSION
Solicit and receive security alerts, advisories, and directives from reputable external organizations. Identify sources relevant to the industry and technology used by your company. Methods to receive alerts and advisories may include:
signing up for email distributions;
subscribing to RSS feeds; and
attending meetings.
Review alerts and advisories for applicability as they are received. The frequency of the reviews should be based on the frequency of the alerts and advisories to ensure you have the most up-to-date information.
External alerts and advisories may prompt you to generate internal security alerts, advisories, or directives, and share these with all personnel with a need-to-know. The individuals should assess the risk related to a given alert and act to respond as appropriate. Sometimes it may require a configuration update. Other times, the information may also require adjusting system architecture in order to thwart a threat described in an advisory.
Example
You monitor security advisories each week. You review the alert emails and online subscription service alerts to determine which ones apply [b]. You create a list of the applicable alerts and research what steps you need to take to address them. Next, you generate a plan that you review with your change management group so that the work can be scheduled [c].
Potential Considerations
Are the responses to system security alerts and advisories identified in relation to the assessed severity of potential flaws (e.g., communicating with responsible personnel, initiating vulnerability scans, initiating system flaw remediation activities) [a]?
Are system security alerts and advisories addressed (e.g., assessing potential severity or likelihood, communicating with responsible personnel, initiating vulnerability scans, initiating system flaw remediation activities) [a,c]?
Copyright
Copyright 2020, 2021 Carnegie Mellon University and The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory LLC.
Copyright 2021 Futures, Inc.
This material is based upon work funded and supported by the Department of Defense under Contract No. FA8702-15-D-0002 with Carnegie Mellon University for the operation of the Software Engineering Institute, a federally funded research and development center, and under Contract No. HQ0034-13-D-0003 and Contract No. N00024-13-D-6400 with the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory LLC, a University Affiliated Research Center.
The view, opinions, and/or findings contained in this material are those of the author(s) and should not be construed as an official Government position, policy, or decision, unless designated by other documentation.
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