Confidential Files

NIST Sets Course For Handling Sensitive Data

Confidential Files
NIST released guidelines on the handling of confidential information by contractors.

The Snowden leaks were a wake-up call for U.S. Government agencies that the tools and processes to protect classified and sensitive data were woefully out of step with the current environment of small, capacious storage devices and powerful cloud-based secure communications and hosting platforms.

But what about all the data that is stored on systems belonging to the (many) contractors that the government works with?

Last week brings some clarification: a draft document from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) “Protecting Controlled Unclassified Information in Nonfederal Information Systems and Organizations.” (Draft Special Publication 800-171).

The new NIST document outlines steps for protecting sensitive unclassified federal information that resides in nonfederal information systems and environments. Those include non-federal information systems that lie outside of the scope of existing laws like the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) and any components of nonfederal systems that process, store, or transmit CUI.

Read more via NIST Guidance Sets Course For Contractors’ Handling Sensitive Data | Digital Guardian.

Editor’s note: this story originally ran on the Digital Guardian blog.

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