Taking a closer look at the mapping structure:
1. Mapping to FISMA Moderate - NIST 800-53 (Rev 5)
FISMA Moderate categorizes systems based on the potential impact of a security breach and is aligned with the NIST 800-53 controls for ensuring the security of federal information systems. SCAF’s design integrates key NIST 800-53 controls at every layer of the cloud-native architecture, addressing key security and privacy domains.
Key NIST 800-53 Controls Mapped to SCAF:
Access Control (AC): SCAF enforces strict access control mechanisms through Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) and Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), ensuring only authorized users can access critical resources. This aligns with NIST controls like AC-2 (Account Management), AC-3 (Access Enforcement), and AC-17 (Remote Access).
- System and Communications Protection (SC): SCAF implements encrypted communications and secure microservices, aligning with SC-8 (Transmission Confidentiality and Integrity) and SC-13 (Cryptographic Protection), ensuring data is protected both in transit and at rest.
- Configuration Management (CM): By automating configuration management and enforcing security policies through Infrastructure as Code (IaC), SCAF aligns with controls like CM-2 (Baseline Configuration) and CM-6 (Configuration Settings), ensuring all systems maintain secure and consistent configurations.
- Incident Response (IR): SCAF incorporates automated incident detection, response workflows, and recovery mechanisms. This directly supports IR-4 (Incident Handling) and IR-6 (Incident Reporting), ensuring rapid detection and response to incidents.
- Audit and Accountability (AU): SCAF uses integrated logging, monitoring, and audit trail capabilities, which aligns with AU-2 (Audit Events) and AU-6 (Audit Review, Analysis, and Reporting). These features provide real-time monitoring and automated reporting for compliance and security auditing.
- Security Assessment and Authorization (CA): SCAF ensures continuous compliance through ongoing risk assessments and vulnerability management, mapping to CA-2 (Security Assessments) and CA-7 (Continuous Monitoring).
- System and Information Integrity (SI): The proactive detection of vulnerabilities and implementation of patches is central to SCAF, which aligns with SI-2 (Flaw Remediation) and SI-4 (Information System Monitoring).
2. Mapping to CIS Controls
The CIS Controls are a prioritized set of actions that mitigate the most prevalent cyber threats. SCAF provides comprehensive coverage of key CIS Controls across multiple levels of the cloud-native architecture.
Key CIS Controls Mapped to SCAF:
- CIS Control 1: Inventory and Control of Enterprise Assets: SCAF automates asset management by providing real-time visibility into cloud assets, ensuring inventory is tracked and secure.
- CIS Control 5: Secure Configuration for Hardware and Software on Mobile Devices, Laptops, Workstations, and Servers: SCAF enforces secure configurations across all cloud resources through automated configuration management tools, ensuring consistent security baselines.
- CIS Control 7: Continuous Vulnerability Management: SCAF integrates vulnerability scanning and patch management within its framework, ensuring continuous monitoring for known vulnerabilities and timely remediation.
- CIS Control 8: Audit Log Management: Through comprehensive logging and monitoring capabilities, SCAF ensures that all access and changes are logged and auditable, helping organizations meet their compliance requirements.
- CIS Control 13: Data Protection: SCAF encrypts sensitive data both in transit and at rest, ensuring adherence to data protection policies aligned with CIS guidelines for safeguarding critical information.
3. Mapping to NIST SP 800-207A (Zero Trust Architecture)
NIST SP 800-207A focuses on Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA), which emphasizes the principle of "never trust, always verify." SCAF naturally aligns with the Zero Trust model by embedding security controls throughout the system architecture, ensuring that no implicit trust is granted, and access is continuously monitored and controlled.
Key Zero Trust Architecture Components Mapped to SCAF:
- Identity-Centric Security (ICAM): SCAF enforces strong identity verification mechanisms, ensuring that access is continuously verified before granting permissions. This supports ZTA principles like Dynamic Policy Enforcement and Identity Verification.
- Least Privilege (RBAC): SCAF implements role-based access control, ensuring that users and systems have the least amount of access required to perform their tasks, a core tenet of ZTA.
- Microsegmentation and Isolation: SCAF leverages microsegmentation within cloud environments to isolate workloads and services, ensuring that lateral movement is minimized in the event of a compromise. This aligns with ZTA Segmentation principles, where traffic between components is always scrutinized.
- Continuous Monitoring: Through real-time monitoring and behavioral analytics, SCAF ensures that every action is logged and continuously assessed for anomalous behavior, supporting ZTA’s Continuous Monitoring and Logging requirement.
- Adaptive Authentication: SCAF incorporates multi-factor and adaptive authentication processes to ensure that identity is validated at every step, in alignment with Zero Trust’s demand for Authentication and Authorization at Every Level.
The SCAF provides a proactive, layered defense strategy that directly aligns with FISMA Moderate NIST 800-53, CIS Controls, and NIST SP 800-207A (Zero Trust Architecture). By embedding security into every layer of the cloud architecture—automating guardrails, continuous monitoring, and access control—it not only mitigates cyber threats but also addresses human error, disaster recovery, and compliance requirements.
By taking a comprehensive approach to security methodology, you ensure that your organization can securely scale in the cloud while maintaining strong resilience against both external and internal threats, in full alignment with modern security frameworks.
