The National Institute of Standards and Technology Risk Management Framework (NIST RMF) is a guidance document for federal agencies in the United States and contractors that work with the federal government.
It defines a risk management process that blends security, privacy, and information systems controls into a unified workflow to manage risk.
The NIST Risk Management Framework is published as NIST SP 800-37 Rev. 2, and was created to define a core process for building a framework to evaluate risk in information systems. The RMF links out to several other publications, most notably to NIST Special Publication 800-53 as it defines a catalog of privacy and security controls.
The RMF was first published in 2010, and designed to help organizations comply with the Federal Information Security Modernization Act of 2014 (a revision of the 2002 version), the Privacy Act of 1974, and Federal Information Processing Standards, among others.
The RMF is designed to be technology neutral. It makes no judgment on which technology solutions are best to reduce risk; rather, it is meant to be used as part of a comprehensive approach to identifying and mitigating risks in information systems. This is a vital process, especially with threats becoming more pervasive in the cybersecurity landscape. The RMF includes a few different components for organizations to pay attention to with regards to compliance.
The NIST RMF provides organizations with an established framework to follow in their risk management programs, which can streamline building those processes into the organization.
Government contractors and U.S. federal agencies are the ones who must comply with the NIST RMF. For other organizations, the framework is voluntary. Regardless, to comply with the framework, companies must follow a few key steps:
RecordPoint can help U.S. companies facilitate their NIST RMF compliance with several key features, including:
Proactively dispose of data you don’t need with custom retention policies that make minimization effortless.
Set rules that are tailored to your business to enable AI classification, so you can accurately identify and protect sensitive data.
Automate compliance tasks with AI and machine learning models trained on your data.
Identify trends and anomalies in your data with enterprise-grade reporting capabilities.
The NIST RMF is mandated for U.S. federal agencies and the contractors who work with federal agencies. As a result, violations of the RMF are adjudicated under the False Claims Act. From February 2024, the penalties for making a false claim to the US Government range from $13,946 to $27,894 per violation. It isn't uncommon for an organization to face hundreds — or even thousands — of violations in a single DOJ action.
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No. The NIST Risk Management Framework is designed as a collection of best practices that companies can choose to use as part of constructing their risk management program. NIST is a government agency, but has no power to compel private industry to follow its guidance.
There are seven steps included in the NIST RMF: Prepare, Categorize, Select, Implement, Assess, Authorize, and Monitor. These steps are designed to assist companies in developing a risk management program that can apply to new as well as legacy systems.
The NIST Risk Management Framework is useful for any organization of any size. It provides a process that integrates security, privacy, and cyber supply chain risk management activities into the system development life cycle. The RMF is valuable for organizations of any size and industry.