[Federal Register Volume 84, Number 35 (Thursday, February 21, 2019)]
[Notices]
[Pages 5420-5421]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2019-02977]


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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

National Institute of Standards and Technology

[Docket No.: 190204061-9061-01]


National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) Critical 
Cybersecurity Hygiene: Patching the Enterprise Building Block

AGENCY: National Institute of Standards and Technology, Department of 
Commerce.

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) 
invites organizations to provide products and technical expertise to 
support and demonstrate security platforms for the Critical 
Cybersecurity Hygiene: Patching the Enterprise Building Block. This 
notice is the initial step for the National Cybersecurity Center of 
Excellence (NCCoE) in collaborating with technology companies to 
address cybersecurity challenges identified under the Critical 
Cybersecurity Hygiene: Patching the Enterprise Building Block. 
Participation in the building block is open to all interested 
organizations.

DATES: Collaborative activities will commence as soon as enough 
completed and signed letters of interest have been returned to address 
all the necessary components and capabilities, but no earlier than 
March 25, 2019.

ADDRESSES: The NCCoE is located at 9700 Great Seneca Highway, 
Rockville, MD 20850. Letters of interest must be submitted to 
[email protected] or via hardcopy to National Institute of 
Standards and Technology, NCCoE; 9700 Great Seneca Highway, Rockville, 
MD 20850. Organizations whose letters of interest are accepted in 
accordance with the process set forth in the SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION 
section of this notice will be asked to sign a consortium Cooperative 
Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with NIST. An NCCoE 
consortium CRADA template can be found at: https://www.nccoe.nist.gov/sites/default/files/library/nccoe-consortium-crada-example.pdf.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Alper Kerman and Murugiah Souppaya via 
email to [email protected]; by telephone 301-975-0226 and 301-975-
8443; or by mail to National Institute of Standards and Technology, 
NCCoE; 9700 Great Seneca Highway, Rockville, MD 20850. Additional 
details about the Critical Cybersecurity Hygiene: Patching the 
Enterprise Building Block are available at https://www.nccoe.nist.gov/sites/default/files/library/project-descriptions/ch-pe-project-description-draft.pdf.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: Interested parties must contact NIST to 
request a letter of interest template to be completed and submitted to 
NIST. Letters of interest will be accepted on a first come, first 
served basis. When the building block has been completed, NIST will 
post a notice on the NCCoE Critical Cybersecurity Hygiene: Patching the 
Enterprise Building Block website at https://www.nccoe.nist.gov/sites/default/files/library/project-descriptions/ch-pe-project-description-draft.pdf announcing the completion of the building block and informing 
the public that it will no longer accept letters of interest for this 
building block.
    Background: The NCCoE, part of NIST, is a public-private 
collaboration for accelerating the widespread adoption of integrated 
cybersecurity tools and technologies. The NCCoE brings together experts 
from industry, government, and academia under one roof to develop 
practical, interoperable cybersecurity approaches that address the 
real-world needs of complex Information Technology (IT) systems. By 
accelerating dissemination and use of these integrated tools and 
technologies for protecting IT assets, the NCCoE will enhance trust in 
U.S. IT communications, data, and storage systems; reduce risk for 
companies and individuals using IT systems; and encourage development 
of innovative, job-creating cybersecurity products and services.
    Process: NIST is soliciting responses from all sources of relevant 
security capabilities (see below) to enter into a Cooperative Research 
and Development Agreement (CRADA) to provide products and technical 
expertise to support and demonstrate security platforms for the 
Critical Cybersecurity Hygiene: Patching the Enterprise Building Block. 
The full building block can be viewed at: https://www.nccoe.nist.gov/sites/default/files/library/project-descriptions/ch-pe-project-description-draft.pdf.
    Interested parties should contact NIST using the information 
provided in the FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT section of this notice. 
NIST will then provide each interested party with a letter of interest 
template, which the party must complete, certify that it is accurate, 
and submit to NIST. NIST will contact interested parties if there are 
questions regarding the responsiveness of the letters of interest to 
the building block objective or requirements identified below. NIST 
will select participants who have submitted complete letters of 
interest on a first come, first served basis within each category of 
product components or capabilities listed below up to the number of 
participants in each category necessary to carry out this building 
block. However, there may be continuing opportunity to participate even 
after initial activity commences. Selected participants will be 
required to enter into a consortium CRADA with NIST (for reference, see 
ADDRESSES section above). NIST published a notice in the Federal 
Register on October 19, 2012 (77 FR 64314) inviting U.S. companies to 
enter into National Cybersecurity Excellence Partnerships (NCEPs) in 
furtherance of the NCCoE. For this demonstration project, NCEP partners 
will not be given priority for participation.
    Building Block Objective: The objective of this building block is 
to demonstrate a proposed approach for improving enterprise patching 
practices for general IT systems. A detailed description of the 
Critical Cybersecurity Hygiene: Patching the Enterprise Building Block 
is available at: https://www.nccoe.nist.gov/sites/default/files/library/project-descriptions/ch-pe-project-description-draft.pdf.
    Requirements: Each responding organization's letter of interest 
should identify which security platform component(s) or capability(ies) 
it is

[[Page 5421]]

offering. Letters of interest should not include company proprietary 
information, and all components and capabilities must be commercially 
available. Components are listed in section 3 of the Critical 
Cybersecurity Hygiene: Patching the Enterprise Building Block (for 
reference, please see the link in the PROCESS section above) and 
include, but are not limited to:

 Personal computers (PCs) and mobile devices, including 
operating systems, firmware, and apps
 Unified endpoint management (UEM), enterprise mobility 
management (EMM), mobile device management (MDM), and mobile 
application management (MAM) solutions
 Firewalls and intrusion detection/protection systems
 Routers/switches
 Network-based storage
 Update sources
 Privilege access management (PAM) system and privileged access 
workstation
 Configuration management system
 Vulnerability management system
 On-premises datacenter and cloud infrastructure, including 
servers, virtual machine (VM) hosts, VMs, containers, apps, and 
firmware

    Each responding organization's letter of interest should identify 
how their products address one or more of the following desired 
solution characteristics in section 2 of the Critical Cybersecurity 
Hygiene: Patching the Enterprise Building Block (for reference, please 
see the link in the PROCESS section above):
    1. Free or commercial tools will be harnessed to enable inventory 
capabilities so that the assets in the form of firmware, operating 
systems, and applications across the environment can be discovered, 
identified, classified for different impact levels and then prioritized 
for the order of remediation.
    2. Patches will be deployed on scheduled intervals as part of 
regular release cycles, as well as on demand upon active patching 
emergencies in crisis situations to endpoint firmware, OS, and 
applications hosted on-premises or in the cloud (e.g., Infrastructure 
as a Service), as well as ``network devices'' like firewalls, Storage 
Area Network (SAN) devices, routers, network switches, and other 
network appliances.
    3. A cloud delivery model will be used as the mechanism for 
patching, such as a mobile device or a ``Windows as a Service (WaaS)'' 
model with Windows operating systems, Apple Software Update, and mobile 
software updates for Android and iOS devices provided by device 
manufacturers or mobile operators.
    4. Vulnerabilities will be identified and categorized across the 
assets so that the appropriate patches can be deployed in a prioritized 
order for optimum effectiveness.
    5. There will be implementation procedures for isolation methods in 
place for assets that cannot be easily patched such as legacy 
unsupported systems or systems with very high operational availability 
requirements.
    6. There will be stringent security practices in place to safeguard 
the patch management systems and any associated components used to 
support the patch management activities.
    Responding organizations need to understand and, in their letters 
of interest, commit to provide:
    1. Access for all participants' project teams to component 
interfaces and the organization's experts necessary to make functional 
connections among security platform components.
    2. Support for development and demonstration of the Critical 
Cybersecurity Hygiene: Patching the Enterprise Building Block in NCCoE 
facilities which will be conducted in a manner consistent with the 
following standards and guidance: FIPS 200, FIPS 201, SP 800-53, SP 
800-40, SP 800-184 and NIST, Framework for Improving Critical 
Infrastructure Cybersecurity.
    Additional details about the Critical Cybersecurity Hygiene: 
Patching the Enterprise Building Block are available at: https://www.nccoe.nist.gov/sites/default/files/library/project-descriptions/ch-pe-project-description-draft.pdf.
    NIST cannot guarantee that all of the products proposed by 
respondents will be used in the demonstration. Each prospective 
participant will be expected to work collaboratively with NIST staff 
and other project participants under the terms of the consortium CRADA 
in the development of the Critical Cybersecurity Hygiene: Patching the 
Enterprise Building Block. Prospective participants' contribution to 
the collaborative effort will include assistance in establishing the 
necessary interface functionality, connection and set-up capabilities 
and procedures, demonstration harnesses, environmental and safety 
conditions for use, integrated platform user instructions, and 
demonstration plans and scripts necessary to demonstrate the desired 
capabilities. Each participant will train NIST personnel, as necessary, 
to operate its product in capability demonstrations. Following 
successful demonstrations, NIST will publish a description of the 
security platform and its performance characteristics sufficient to 
permit other organizations to develop and deploy security platforms 
that meet the security objectives of the Critical Cybersecurity 
Hygiene: Patching the Enterprise Building Block. These descriptions 
will be public information.
    Under the terms of the consortium CRADA, NIST will support 
development of interfaces among participants' products by providing IT 
infrastructure, laboratory facilities, office facilities, collaboration 
facilities, and staff support to component composition, security 
platform documentation, and demonstration activities.
    The dates of the demonstration of the Critical Cybersecurity 
Hygiene: Patching the Enterprise Building Block capability will be 
announced on the NCCoE website at least two weeks in advance at http://nccoe.nist.gov/. The expected outcome of the demonstration is to 
improve enterprise patching practices for general IT systems as part of 
a crucial effort in maintaining a highly effective Critical 
Cybersecurity Hygiene within the enterprise. Participating 
organizations will gain from the knowledge that their products are 
interoperable with other participants' offerings.
    For additional information on the NCCoE governance, business 
processes, and NCCoE operational structure, visit the NCCoE website 
http://nccoe.nist.gov/.

Kevin A. Kimball,
NIST Chief of Staff.
[FR Doc. 2019-02977 Filed 2-20-19; 8:45 am]
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