Impact-level Prioritization
LOW MODERATE HIGHRequirements NIST SOURCE
Conduct an impact-level prioritization of organizational systems to obtain additional granularity on system impact levels.
Discussion (NIST Supplemental Guidance)
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.
Implementation Guidance
Original engineering commentary written for this explorer — not NIST source text and not authoritative guidance.
No engineering interpretation has been authored for RA-2(1) 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
Assessment Objectives
- an impact-level prioritization of organizational systems is conducted to obtain additional granularity on system impact levels.
Examine
[SELECT FROM: Risk assessment policy; security and privacy 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
STIGs & CCIs
No STIG checks or CCI mappings are currently loaded for RA-2(1). 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
Categorized from the SP 800-53A "Examine"/"Test" artifact list above by keyword — not an authoritative NIST evidence list.
Policy
- Risk assessment policy
- security and privacy 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