The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has developed a framework called the Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) to streamline cybersecurity for private sector businesses. NIST CSF is a set of voluntary standards, recommendations and best practices that are designed to help organizations prevent, identify, detect, respond to and recover from cyberattacks.
Why use NIST CSF?
- Well suited for small to medium sized businesses (SMBs)
- Easier to achieve and more affordable than other frameworks
- Streamline and demonstrate compliance with multiple standards
- Very flexible and widely recognize
Did you know? Effective implementation of the CSF is an affirmative defence under many state laws and regulations, protecting your company from lawsuits and demonstrating compliance.
The Framework leverages a risk-based approach to reducing cybersecurity vulnerabilities and helps organizations:
- Better understand, manage, and reduce cybersecurity risks
- Assists in determining which activities are most important to assure critical operations and service delivery
- Helps prioritize investments to maximize impact of each dollar spent on cybersecurity
CSF provides the structure to help achieve compliance with multiple standards, including HIPAA, GDPR and Cyber Insurance, amongst others.
Concerns Associated with NIST Compliance
- Most businesses do not possess in-house expertise to safely assess NIST CSF requirements.
- Businesses need to understand their unique cybersecurity risks and vulnerabilities to properly design, implement and manage their security programs and best practices.
Leveraging the NIST – CSF standards can provide Positive ROI and Peace of Mind