The Ultimate Guide to

NIST CSF

Introduction

Cybersecurity risk management is more critical today than ever. Global cybercrime costs businesses 16.4 billion every day, with a ransomware attack occurring every eleven seconds. Yet, managing risk is a challenging, ongoing, iterative process for all organizations.

Today, many companies need help creating a rigorous approach to cybersecurity risk management and turn to security guidelines like the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework (CSF). But despite many advantages, the adoption of this framework can be challenging for many organizations. However, there is a way to implement the NIST CSF faster while ensuring it will provide all desired security benefits.

What is NIST CSF?

NIST CSF is a list of standards, guidelines, and practices designed to help organizations better manage and reduce cyber risk of all types, including malware, password theft, phishing attacks, DDoS, traffic interception, social engineering, and others. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) created the framework by collaborating with government and industry groups, and the framework was designed to complement existing organizational cybersecurity operations. NIST CSF rests on industry best practices gathered from various other documents and standards like ISO 27001 and COBIT 5.

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Want to learn more about NIST CSF 2.0, the latest update to the NIST CSF framework?

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What are the 3 key components of NIST CSF?

NIST CSF is composed of three components:

1 Implementation tiers

2 Framework core

3 Framework profiles

1 Implementation Tiers

Implementation tiers provide context for cybersecurity risk management and guide organizations to the appropriate level of rigor for cybersecurity programs.

NIST CSF framework tiers are categorized on a scale of 1 (lowest) to 4 (highest):

Tier 1: Partial

A tier 1 categorization means cybersecurity risk management practices lack formalization, and awareness of cybersecurity risks at the organization is limited.

Tier 2: Risk Informed

A tier 2 categorization means risk management practices receive management approval but may not be integrated into an enterprise-wide policy. Cybersecurity information sharing within the organization remains informal.

Tier 3: Repeatable

A tier 3 categorization means management endorses the organization’s cybersecurity practices and formalizes them into an enterprise-wide policy. These practices are updated regularly based on risk assessments and changes to the business, technology, and threat landscapes.

Tier 4: Adaptable

A tier 4 categorization means organizations recognize the interplay between cybersecurity risk and organizational objectives and integrate this into their decision-making processes. The organization demonstrates agility in adapting to evolving threats and technology landscapes and is able to quickly respond to sophisticated threats.

2 Framework Core

The framework core is the heart of NIST CSF and is an essential matrix designed to guide cybersecurity risk management programs. The framework core discusses activities incorporated in cybersecurity programs, which can be tailored to an organization’s unique needs. These critical security activities are detailed in a hierarchy of three components – functions, categories, and subcategories.

The 6 NIST CSF Functions

Functions represent the overarching cybersecurity activities. There are six functions – Govern, Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond, and Recover.

Govern

Establish and monitor your company’s cybersecurity risk management strategy, expectations, and policy.

Identify

Have a clear understanding of cybersecurity risks and how to prioritize actions effectively.

Protect

Implement measures to minimize the impact of cyber threats. These could include educating staff to recognize risks, establishing procedures to improve network security, and considering liability insurance for financial protection.

Detect

Develop strategies to quickly identify and respond to cyber attacks. This involves implementing data classification, asset management, and risk management protocols.

Respond

Have the steps for what should happen after identifying a cybersecurity threat documented. This should include clear communication with staff, shareholders, partners, and customers, as well as law enforcement and legal counsel.

Recover

Plan the restoration of any impaired capabilities or services following a cyber attack, ensuring the organization can swiftly recover.

Subcategories

Subcategories further refine each category into specific outcomes, such as cataloging external information systems and protecting data at rest.

3 Framework profiles

Framework profiles illustrate how NIST CSF can be tailored to suit specific organizational needs. The profiles compare an organization’s objectives, risk appetite, and resources against the framework Core’s desired outcomes. Comparing current profiles with target profiles helps teams identify opportunities for improvement.

How to use NIST CSF

As the NIST CSF allows flexibility for all organizations, its usage varies greatly depending on individual business needs. However, some common patterns of use exist, which include:

Leadership using the NIST CSF vocabulary to have informed conversations about risk
Organizations using tiers to establish optimal levels of risk management
Organizations creating profiles to help understand security practices in business
Security teams and business teams use Profiles and the specific activities included in the Framework Core to prioritize security improvements and determine budgets
Organizations choose to streamline and rationalize their set of security controls using recommended security activities from the Framework Core as their “north star”

1 Examine current state

This stage includes identifying security priorities/vulnerabilities/risks, determining compliance requirements, and reviewing existing security policies and practices.

2 Conduct an assessment

This stage includes reviewing vulnerabilities, identifying threats while defining probability and likelihood, categorizing risks, and creating a risk heat map.

3 Identify your target state

This stage includes identifying mitigation options, translating mitigation into desired outcomes while defining goals for the outcomes, and managing security priorities.

4 Plan your roadmap

This final stage involves quantifying and grading the current state, establishing a budget and identifying resources, defining targets within the budget, and sharing the results with stakeholders.

A brief history of NIST CSF

With its trusted reputation as an unbiased source of cybersecurity best practices, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) was selected to develop a cybersecurity framework in response to Executive Order 13636.

Executive Order 13636 aimed to improve the overall security and resilience of the nation’s critical infrastructure and was signed by President Obama on February 12th, 2013 – kicking off the development of NIST CSF.

To successfully develop NIST CSF, NIST collaborated with stakeholders from the federal government, security industry, and academia. Collecting all of the required information, identifying any gaps, making necessary edits, and putting together an action plan took the organization a little over a year.

NIST CSF Timeline February 26th, 2013: NIST submits a request for information (RFI) to begin developing a cybersecurity framework
April and May 2013: A series of cybersecurity framework workshops were held
July 1st, 2013: Preliminary framework released
July-November 2013: Additional cybersecurity framework workshops were help
February 12th, 2014: NIST CSF 1.0 is published
January 2023: NIST announced its intent to make revisions to NIST CSF
February 2024: NIST releases NIST CSF 2.0

How do I become NIST CSF compliant?

To become compliant with NIST CSF, an organization must follow the guidelines outlined in the framework and remain compliant over time. NIST does not have a formal audit process or attestation for NIST CSF. Instead, NIST encourages organizations to determine their conformity needs and develop their own assessment programs. Maintaining NIST CSF compliance protects not only your organization but your customers, partners, and third party vendors as well.

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To learn more about implementing NIST CSF, check out our step-by-step on NIST CSF compliance.

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What are the benefits of implementing NIST CSF?

NIST CSF is an excellent framework to help your organization identify, detect, respond to, and recover from cyber risk, as well as deliver valuable business benefits, which include:

Sparking meaningful internal dialog on risk
Providing a single pane of glass into compliance efforts and visibility of all vulnerabilities and threats, including their organizational impact
Helping identify and align organizational risk tolerance levels, clarify security priorities, and better budgeting for security solutions
Streamlining and rationalizing security controls in an organization so that repetitive work to meet compliance demands can be eliminated
Improving security posture due to implementing more rigorous security management and compliance practices

How should you prepare for implementing NIST CSF?

To best prepare for implementing NIST CSF, you can take the following five steps:

Step 1

Understand the three key components of the framework: Implementation tiers, framework core, and framework profiles.

Step 2

Evaluate your organizations current cybersecurity practices.

Step 3

Outline your current cybersecurity controls and practices.

Step 4

Identify areas of improvement by comparing where your organization currently is against the NIST CSF requirements.

Step 5

Develop an action plan for implementing the framework.

An outline of the NIST CSF assessment process

Although NIST CSF does not have a formal attestation process, you can still assess your organization’s security posture using NIST CSF. Through internal or external control assessments, NIST CSF serves as a framework for organizations to assess their resilience goals, including incident response, risk management, and business continuity.

While there’s an industry standard for assessing the maturity of these goals, the benchmarks used vary among organizations and assessors.

An assessment doesn’t determine compliance with NIST CSF requirements; rather, it gauges the maturity of an organization’s readiness to handle and respond to incidents. Typically, this assessment is followed by recommendations for improvement.

Unlike standards like SOC 2® or ISO 27001, NIST CSF assessments don’t yield a binary compliance judgment. Instead, they categorize organizations into various levels of maturity within the NIST CSF criteria.

NIST CSF: Frequently Asked Questions

While originally tailored for critical infrastructure sectors, NIST CSF has evolved into a versatile tool applicable to any organization looking to bolster its cybersecurity posture.

The framework’s adaptability suits companies of varying sizes and industries, from government agencies to private enterprises and beyond. Its broad scope encompasses cybersecurity concerns relevant to diverse sectors, ranging from finance and healthcare to manufacturing and beyond.

The scope of NIST CSF was recently broadened in the NIST CSF 2.0 update. You can learn all the details by reading our comprehensive blog post on the NIST CSF 2.0 update.

As cyber threats continue to evolve, NIST CSF remains a crucial resource for organizations seeking robust cybersecurity strategies.

The primary objective of the NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) is to empower organizations to enhance their cybersecurity posture and effectively manage cyber risks. The framework enables organizations to identify, assess, and systematically mitigate cybersecurity risks by providing a structured approach to cybersecurity.

It also facilitates communication and collaboration between different stakeholders, fostering a holistic approach to cybersecurity management.

By aligning with industry standards and best practices, NIST CSF equips organizations with the tools and guidance necessary to navigate the complex landscape of cyber threats and safeguard their assets, operations, and reputation.

While NIST CSF and ISO 27001 are both prominent information security standards, they have distinct differences in approach, structure, and application. Here are three key differences:

NIST CSF is a framework, whereas ISO 27001 is a standard. A framework is a voluntary, flexible set of best practices based on an organization’s specific needs. A standard is a set guideline on how to implement specific requirements.
NIST CSF is a voluntary framework that companies can adopt to bolster their security postures, while ISO 27001 is often required by clients and partners to ensure businesses take a standardized approach to information security. Because NIST CSF is a framework, it has a flexible structure that enables organizations to customize for their specific needs. ISO 27001 is a standard and comes with specific, required guidelines for implementation.
NIST CSF focuses on cybersecurity risk management and the protection of critical infrastructure, while ISO 27001 focuses on information security management and covers a broader range of information security controls. While these are both industry-agnostic and widely used, NIST CSF is more commonly used as a standard from work in the United States while ISO 27001 is used more ubiquitously around the world.

Learn more about ISO 27001 in our ultimate guide to ISO 27001.

Yes, while NIST CSF and NIST SP 800-53 have some overlap, they are different. Key differences include:

NIST CSF is a high-level framework, while NIST SP 800-53 is a detailed set of specific safeguarding measures
NIST CSF takes a risk-based approach by helping organizations assess their cybersecurity risk management approach, while NIST SP 800-53 provides a technical security approach by detailing how organizations can protect their organization from threats like a data break or cyber attack
NIST CSF is a flexible, voluntary set of best practices while NIST SP 800-53 is mandatory for federal agencies and often required for non-federal organizations at the request of vendors, contractors, or customers

Want to learn more? Gain a comprehensive understanding of NIST SP 800-53 in this guide.

NIST CSF maps to the following frameworks (and many more):

ISO 27001
SOC 2
PCI DSS
NIST SP 800-53
NIST Privacy Framework
Cybersecurity Capability Maturity Model (C2M2)
NIST SP 800-171
CIS Critical Security Controls v8
+50 more

The time it takes to become NIST CSF compliant can vary from a few months to over a year. Factors that impact the timeline include how long it takes an organization to plan and allocate resources and whether or not an organization elects to use a GRC platform to streamline the implementation process.

While NIST is not a regulatory agency, Executive Order 13800 mandates the use of NIST CSF for federal government agencies in the United States. However, for most other organizations, the adoption of NIST CSF is voluntary. Despite lacking regulatory enforcement, many entities opt to implement the framework because of its recognized effectiveness in mitigating cyber risks and enhancing cybersecurity resilience. Adhering to NIST CSF can confer additional benefits such as improved cybersecurity maturity, enhanced stakeholder confidence, and better alignment with industry standards and best practices.

Implementing the NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) requires careful planning and resource allocation. NIST provides resources and guidance to help organizations of all sizes and complexities. A good starting point is to familiarize yourself with the framework’s fundamentals by reading the Quick Start Guide provided by NIST or our helpful blog, How to Implement NIST CSF.

While implementation is no easy task, leveraging Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC) platforms such as Hyperproof can streamline implementation by providing access to templates, tools, and automated workflows designed to simplify compliance efforts.

By combining NIST’s guidance with practical tools and expertise, organizations can effectively navigate the complexities of cybersecurity management and embark on a path toward enhanced resilience and risk mitigation.

Hyperproof makes implementing NIST CSF easy

Access to NIST CSF expertise from Hyperproof partners
Approach NIST CSF implementation from a project management perspective
Collect and view risks in a central location
Leverage Hyperproof’s NIST CSF template to get started quickly
Crosswalk overlapping controls from other frameworks to get a jumpstart on your work
Collect and document evidence effectively
Monitor NIST progress in a user-friendly dashboard