NIST SP 800-53 RA-2 Security Categorization

Requirements NIST SOURCE

Discussion (NIST Supplemental Guidance)

Security categories describe the potential adverse impacts or negative consequences to organizational operations, organizational assets, and individuals if organizational information and systems are compromised through a loss of confidentiality, integrity, or availability. Security categorization is also a type of asset loss characterization in systems security engineering processes that is carried out throughout the system development life cycle. Organizations can use privacy risk assessments or privacy impact assessments to better understand the potential adverse effects on individuals. CNSSI 1253 provides additional guidance on categorization for national security systems. Organizations conduct the security categorization process as an organization-wide activity with the direct involvement of chief information officers, senior agency information security officers, senior agency officials for privacy, system owners, mission and business owners, and information owners or stewards. Organizations consider the potential adverse impacts to other organizations and, in accordance with USA PATRIOT and Homeland Security Presidential Directives, potential national-level adverse impacts. Security categorization processes facilitate the development of inventories of information assets and, along with CM-8 , mappings to specific system components where information is processed, stored, or transmitted. The security categorization process is revisited throughout the system development life cycle to ensure that the security categories remain accurate and relevant.

Enhancements NIST SOURCE

RA-2(1) Impact-level Prioritization LOW MODERATE HIGH

Conduct an impact-level prioritization of organizational systems to obtain additional granularity on system impact levels.

Discussion

Organizations apply the "high-water mark" concept to each system categorized in accordance with FIPS 199 , resulting in systems designated as low impact, moderate impact, or high impact. Organizations that desire additional granularity in the system impact designations for risk-based decision-making, can further partition the systems into sub-categories of the initial system categorization. For example, an impact-level prioritization on a moderate-impact system can produce three new sub-categories: low-moderate systems, moderate-moderate systems, and high-moderate systems. Impact-level prioritization and the resulting sub-categories of the system give organizations an opportunity to focus their investments related to security control selection and the tailoring of control baselines in responding to identified risks. Impact-level prioritization can also be used to determine those systems that may be of heightened interest or value to adversaries or represent a critical loss to the federal enterprise, sometimes described as high value assets. For such high value assets, organizations may be more focused on complexity, aggregation, and information exchanges. Systems with high value assets can be prioritized by partitioning high-impact systems into low-high systems, moderate-high systems, and high-high systems. Alternatively, organizations can apply the guidance in CNSSI 1253 for security objective-related categorization.

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Implementation Guidance

Engineering Interpretation

Original engineering commentary written for this explorer — not NIST source text and not authoritative guidance.

No engineering interpretation has been authored for RA-2 yet. This section is architected to receive it — see the Requirements and Assessment sections above for the authoritative NIST source content in the meantime.

Assessment

NIST SP 800-53A REV 5.2.0

Assessment Objectives

the system and the information it processes, stores, and transmits are categorized;
the security categorization results, including supporting rationale, are documented in the security plan for the system;
the authorizing official or authorizing official designated representative reviews and approves the security categorization decision.

Examine

[SELECT FROM: Risk assessment policy; security planning policy and procedures; procedures addressing security categorization of organizational information and systems; security categorization documentation; system security plan; privacy plan; other relevant documents or records].

Interview

[SELECT FROM: Organizational personnel with security categorization and risk assessment responsibilities; organizational personnel with security and privacy responsibilities].

Test

[SELECT FROM: Organizational processes for security categorization].

Overlays

OT/ICS Overlay SP 800-82r3

NIST SP 800-82r3 Appendix F, Table 22. Blank baseline means the control/control enhancement is not selected in that initial OT baseline.

LOW

Base control: Included (matches standard baseline)

MODERATE

Base control: Included (matches standard baseline)

HIGH

Base control: Included (matches standard baseline)

STIGs & CCIs

No STIG checks or CCI mappings are currently loaded for RA-2. This section is architected to display, per product: STIG ID, Finding ID, Severity, Title, Description, Check, Fix, CCI, and NIST control mapping — but nothing is populated here until a real DISA STIG/CCI dataset is ingested.

Learn more about STIG/CCI integration →

Evidence

Potential Evidence — Derived

Categorized from the SP 800-53A "Examine"/"Test" artifact list above by keyword — not an authoritative NIST evidence list.

Policy

Risk assessment policy
security planning policy and procedures
system security plan
privacy plan

Testing

Organizational processes for security categorization

Other Records

procedures addressing security categorization of organizational information and systems
security categorization documentation
other relevant documents or records