Skip to content

NIST SP 800-171 Controls#

Disclaimer

It is important to note that the information provided in this document is for general informational purposes only. Any liability for the completeness, accuracy, timeliness, or reliability of the content is expressly excluded. Organizations are advised to consult with legal, compliance, or technical experts to ensure that their specific compliance and security needs are adequately addressed.

NIST SP 800-171, a cybersecurity standard developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), provides 14 families of controls and 110 requirements to protect Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) in non-federal systems and organizations. SAAP plays a critical role in enabling compliance with these controls by focusing on the technical aspects of Kubernetes-based workloads.

  • Total Families in NIST SP 800-171: 14
  • Total Controls in NIST SP 800-171: 110

Controls Addressed by SAAP#

  • Directly Applicable Controls: SAAP enables the implementation of approximately 65 controls, fully enforceable through Kubernetes configurations and features. These controls span critical areas such as:

    • Access Control (AC): Implementing Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), service account restrictions, and network policies to ensure least privilege and secure access.
    • Audit and Accountability (AU): Centralizing log management, enabling Kubernetes audit logging, and enforcing immutable log storage.
    • System and Communications Protection (SC): Securing data in transit with TLS encryption, encrypting etcd data at rest, and isolating network traffic with Kubernetes NetworkPolicies.
    • System and Information Integrity (SI): Scanning container images for vulnerabilities, implementing runtime security with tools like Falco, and automating patch management.

  • Partially Applicable Controls: An additional 15 controls are partially supported by SAAP through integrations and configurable policies. For example:

    • Incident Response (IR): SAAP integrates with monitoring tools to detect anomalies and supports automated alerting for incidents.
    • Risk Assessment (RA): Facilitates regular vulnerability assessments and compliance checks for Kubernetes environments.
    • Media Protection (MP): Supports encryption for Persistent Volume Claims (PVCs) and relies on underlying storage systems for further compliance.

SAAP directly or partially addresses approximately 80 controls across NIST SP 800-171’s families, enabling organizations to align their Kubernetes-based workloads with federal standards for protecting sensitive information. By focusing on technical measures and leveraging Kubernetes features, SAAP simplifies the complex task of meeting stringent cybersecurity requirements.

This comprehensive support makes SAAP an invaluable tool for organizations aiming to achieve NIST SP 800-171 compliance in modern cloud-native environments.