Analysis of 1.3M Emails Unveils Hidden Threats Missed by Other Email Security Solutions
Analysis of 1.3M Emails Unveils Hidden Threats Missed by Other Email Security Solutions

Email Compliance For NIST 800-53

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), within the U.S. Department of Commerce, creates standards and guidelines about information security. NIST developed Special Publication 800-53 (NIST SP 800-53) to build on statutory responsibilities laid out in the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA), Public Law (P.L.) 107-347, which is a federal law that requires U.S. government agencies to create, review, and report on agency-wide practices that prioritize information security. NIST 800-53 mandates specific protection and privacy controls necessary for the federal government and critical infrastructure.

NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) is a set of guidelines and principles that organizations should follow to address cybersecurity risks. NIST SP 800-53 also introduces the security control baselines as a starting point for these classes’ security control selection process. These classes can help with prioritization and have similar motivations to CIS Controls.

The framework contains five key areas:

Identify
Protect
Detect
Respond
Recover

Why is NIST SP 800-53 Important?


NIST SP 500-53 is essential because it provides a unified framework for information security. The United States Government leverages NIST for all departments to have a common and effective risk management framework, excluding agencies that deal with national security. Those departments align more with the Fedramp framework.

What are the Benefits of NIST SP 800-53?

 

Compliance with NIST SP 800-53 and other NIST guidelines is significant in FISMA and FedRAMP compliance.

  • It also helps improve the security rating of your organization by providing a secure foundation for information systems.
  • Complying with NIST SP 800-53 and other best standards can help organizations improve their compliance with different data protection laws and regulations such as the SHIELD Act, LGPD, GDPR, CCPA, GLBA, PIPEDA, HIPAA, PCI DSS, and 23 NYCRR 500.

What are the Three Classes of Information Systems in NIST SP 800-53?

NIST SP 800-53 applies the categorization method from the Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS), breaking information systems into three classes:

  • Low-impact
  • Moderate-impact
  • High-affected

What are the NIST SP 800-53 controls?

 

The security controls described in NIST SP 800-53 are organized into 18 families. Each family contains security controls related to the general security topic of the family. Security controls may involve policy, oversight, supervision, manual processes, actions by individuals, or automated mechanisms implemented by information systems or devices.

The 18 security control families are:

Access Control (AC)
Awareness and Training (AT)
Audit and Accountability (AU)
Security Assessments and Authorization (CA)
Configuration Management (CM)
Contingency Planning (CP)
Identification and Authentication (IA)
Incident Response (IR)
Maintenance (MA)
Media Protection (MP)
Physical Protection (PE)
Planning (PL)
Personnel Security (PS)
Risk Assessment (RA)
Systems and Services Acquisition (SA)
System and Communications Protection (SC)
System and Information Integrity (SI)
Program Management (PM)

NIST 800-53 Compliance for Cloud Infrastructure Environments

Published by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), a non-regulatory agency of the United States Department of the Commerce, NIST Special Publication 800-53 provides a catalog of security and privacy controls for federal information systems and organizations.

NIST Special Publication 800-53, Revision 4, represents the most updated security controls catalog since 2005. The expanding threat motivated principally this updated space–characterized by the increasing sophistication of cyber attacks and the operations tempo of adversaries (i.e., the frequency of such attacks, the professionalism of the attacks, and the persistence of targeting by attackers).

NIST 800-53, Revision organized four security controls into eighteen families. Of the eighteen security control families, it closely aligned seventeen families with the seventeen security requirements for federal information and information systems in FIPS Publication 200.

Trustifi has a documented Information Security Program that is broadly aligned with the requirements of NIST 800-53 and ISO 27001.

While our commercial offerings are not certified to comply with these standards, we have security controls in place addressing:

  • Physical and Logical access
  • Physical and Personnel security
  • Change Management
  • Software Development
  • Encryption
  • Continuous Monitoring
  • Third-Party Vendors

Trustifi leverages co-location facilities aligned with Tier-III data center standards and AWS to host the Essentials services.

Unfortunately for U. S. businesses, NIST has the power to help them, but unfortunately for them, if they don’t comply, they’ll face severe penalties. NIST CSF (National Institute of Standards and Technology Common Security Framework) is an effective risk management technique, but it is not mandatory. When considering the costs of a security breach, they’re pretty high.

NIST CSF is a set of guidelines for building secure systems. It provides a common foundation for building applications. Even if you’re not familiar with cybersecurity, you can understand it. NIST CSF provides tools for protecting users, networks, data applications, and infrastructure. 

Role Of Data Loss Prevention In NIST 800-53 Compliance

Data Loss Prevention solves three significant objectives that apply to most organizations. 

  • First, is the organization collecting and storing consumer users’ personally identifiable information? 
  • Second, does the organization have the process and capability to remove the client’s data upon request? 
  • Third, does the organization have a secure access policy to enable multi-factor authentication based on user actions? 

DLP solutions can classify intellectual property in unstructured and structured forms. They can set policies and controls to prevent unauthorized access to intellectual property. Data visibility helps organizations gain insight into how individuals interact with data. DLP can remediate a variety of security challenges, including insider threats. 

  • Data breaches cause damage to the brand, regulatory violations, and lost sales and customers. 
  • Data Loss Prevention solutions require involving stakeholders. 
  • Data Loss Prevention solutions must be implemented correctly and well maintained. 
  • Data Loss Prevention solutions are complex. Encryption is necessary because it protects data. 

Email Encryption and DLP – One Solution For NIST 800 – 53 Compliance

 

Management of DLP tools over time requires continuous evaluation and tuning. Over time, these tools become unmanaged and lose their effectiveness. Many organizations only turn on “the basic DLP” rules because of the lack of resources to manage the solution full-time. Hackers know this. The hacker community knows that most security adaptive controls rarely get fully deployed, except for organizations that spend big dollars outsourcing to an MSSP or MSP service.

The following events are some of the leading causes of data theft in 2022.

  1. Misconfigured Software Settings.
  2. Social Engineering
  3. Recycled Passwords
  4. Poor Encryption
  5. Software Vulnerabilities
  6. Use of Default Passwords.

Gartner often references in their security reports the challenges of misconfigured security solutions impact expected outcomes of SECOPS protection strategies.

In parallel with email encryption, Data Loss Prevention identified protected compliance content within the email message. It instilled rules to prevent NIST 800-53 regulated data from leaving through the email channel by enacting email encryption to protect information attempting to leave the organization unprotected.

Email Encryption Solution From Trustifi

Trustifi One-Click Compliance™ and Data Loss Prevention features make it easy to prove NIST 800-53 compliance and ensure your data remains secure, even if an end-user forgets to encrypt an email manually. The email administrator quickly selects which standards and Data Loss Prevention policies must comply with NIST 800-53. Trustifi’s intelligent AI Engine will scan all outbound emails for sensitive content such as student records and automatically encrypt them.

With Trustifi’s One-Click Compliance™, the solution takes the complexity out of compliance.

For an additional layer of security between potential attackers and your sensitive data, you can request that recipients verify their identities via multi-factor authentication(MFA).

With Trustifi, organizations collecting consumer information can send secure encrypted emails without remembering to click the encrypt email button. Just as quickly, recipients open an encrypted email with a single click even if they don’t have Trustifi themselves.

The email administrator sets all the DLP and email encryption policies on the backend to prevent accidental data loss of NIST 800-53 regulated confidential information sent externally. Other solutions require users to log in to a portal to access encrypted emails, adding complexity to sending and receiving messages.

“One-Click” Encrypt And Decrypt With Trustifi


Trustifi makes sending and opening emails simpler than ever. No log-ins, portals, or passwords are needed.

 

Groundbreaking Technology Supporting Optical Character Recognition Technology

 

Trustifi’s OCR technology uses machine learning to scan email attachments such as images and PDF files. It recognizes elements such as a credit card scan or a screenshot of a financial statement and categorizes those attachments as sensitive. The attachment file is automatically encrypted, reducing the opportunity for employees/individuals to transmit unprotected confidential material mistakenly.

 

Emails Get Automatically Scanned

 

The system automatically scans outgoing emails, applies the rules your administrator sets, and then finds the https://trustifi.com/outbound/email-encryption/with no input from the user. This ensures that sensitive data and attachments are not at risk before they reach their intended recipient and are protected from the prying eyes of hackers.

 

Culture

 

Trustifi’s email security services feature a comprehensive suite of email tools for advanced threat protection, easily configurable Data Loss Prevention, and enterprise email encryption. Trustifi’s easy-to-use software is unmatched in its user-friendliness, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness. Trustifi’s time to value, ease of deployment, and lower cost of ownership for SecOps make the company culture secure and a financial match for any client seeking email security, data exfiltration, and message encryption.

Why Trustifi?

Trustifi is a cyber security firm featuring solutions delivered on software as a service platform. Trustifi leads the market with the easiest to use and deploy email security products, providing both inbound and outbound email security from a single vendor.

Trustifi has an extensive roster of clientele throughout North and South America, Europe, and the Asia Pacific. As a global cybersecurity provider of both inbound and outbound email protection, Trustifi currently supports customers from countries including the USA, Canada, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, the UK, the Netherlands, India, the UAE, China, and Japan, Cyprus, the Philippines, and more. The company has also developed “One-Click Compliance” capabilities that cater to world security regulations, including PDPO for Hong Kong, POPI for South Africa, GDPR for Europe, and LGPD for Brazil.

Request A Demo: Trustifi: Email Security Solutions

 

Whether you’re looking for an extra layer of protection in your existing email environment or a complete suite solution, the expertise and simplicity Trustifi offers will exceed your expectations. Let’s talk about a customized email security plan that perfectly fits your needs.