MERIT

Good news for anyone struggling with reports or aligning two behemoth frameworks for compliance reports, the Michigan Cyber Range has formally mapped its exercises to the NIST 800 Cyber Security Framework to better assist our membership. The NIST 800 Framework published over two years ago was the federal government’s answer to applying cybersecurity standards across organizations of all sizes and across multiple verticals, which was no short order. In many cases, the Framework has proven to be quite effective and has given the security industry a universal framework to follow. It can be applied to Security Hygiene and Remediation regardless of team structure and size. In some cases we have seen where the power companies, US military, government agencies and contractors are required to comply with certain components within the framework to be compliant.
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[/visibility] I have heard it said by policy makers and those involved with establishing both frameworks that NIST simplifies and scales down the NICE Workforce Framework to the industry and job level detail… which it certainly does. However, it always brings a smile to my face because when I think of “scaled down”, I don’t typically think of the thousands of pages of documents contained within the NIST Guidelines. The latest version of NIST-800-53, which contains all of the security and privacy controls (as well as some the incident response framework) is 457 pages. NIST 800-61 which contains a large amount of the Incident Response Framework is 97 pages and the list goes on.

It is with the scope, size and importance in mind of the NIST Framework that the Cyber Range has put together a comprehensive map and outline of which requirements are met by practicing Cyber Exercises on the Range. While the document itself is not publicly available, the outline of training is specific to each organization and which framework they wish to follow.

Leaders who need to comply with audits, obtain funding or just want their security professionals trained in the best way will certainly benefit from the ease of submitting paperwork after a Cyber Range Exercise. We offer a host of tailored exercises that can be mapped to your organization’s knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs) ahead of time or you can pick from our current catalogue of scenarios and insure they map to your security objectives.