What are NIST Compliance Controls?
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is a US Department of Commerce agency that develops standards for cybersecurity, including technical controls to ensure information and systems are secure. Compliance with these standards involve following outlined controls. As a research agency, NIST does not directly certify technologies or organizations in NIST standards; however, organizations can pursue third-party validation or leverage NIST-accredited labs for software validation.
For federal contractors, NIST is more than a compliance standard — it is a requirement to work with the U.S. federal government, particularly when handling Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI). Adherence to NIST standards helps maintain confidentiality and protect national security. Even when NIST is not a cybersecurity requirement as part of public-private partnership on contracts, NIST compliance is a powerful security posture to adopt to protect sensitive data from theft and other breaches.
Common NIST Guidelines
- The NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF): This provides industry standards, guidelines, and best practices to help organizations manage their cybersecurity risks. The CSF is organized around five core functions: identify, protect, detect, respond, and recover.
- NIST 800-53: Provides a catalog of security and privacy controls for federal information systems.
- NIST (SP) 800-171: Guides the protection of CUI in non-federal information systems and organizations that are working for the federal government. The FileCloud Compliance Center includes full support for NIST 800-171 compliance.
- NIST (SP) 800-172: Enhanced requirements to protect CUI in nonfederal systems from Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs); supplements NIST SP 800-171 for high-risk, critical, or specialized programs.
- NIST (SP) 800-122: Guides the processing of personally identifiable information (PII) in federal information systems and organizations.
NIST Compliance Controls in FileCloud
FileCloud takes compliance seriously and provides powerful tools to enable and support NIST controls, which reduce risk and ease compliance processes for enterprises and Defense Industrial Base (DIB) contractors.
Organizations can deploy FileCloud as an on-premises solution (FileCloud Server) or in a FedRAMP High-authorized cloud. Both solutions offer FIPS encryption, user authentication (SSO and 2FA), role based access control (RBAC), granular file permissions and Zero Trust File Sharing®, audit trails, data leak prevention (DLP), Smart Content Classification, and more!
NIST 800-171 Compliance Center
NIST 800-171 is a frequently cited compliance framework vital for protecting CUI; to facilitate and ease compliance processes, FileCloud has a custom configuration within the Compliance Center, which connects NIST compliance controls with FileCloud tools, settings, and policies to provide a streamlined compliance review experience. Furthermore, the Compliance Center dashboard will monitor the FileCloud environment for potential issues, providing real-time compliance support.
