[Federal Register Volume 85, Number 23 (Tuesday, February 4, 2020)]
[Notices]
[Pages 6144-6146]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2020-01993]


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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

National Institute of Standards and Technology

[Docket No.: 200113-0015]


National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) Data 
Confidentiality 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 two data confidentiality 
projects within the Data Confidentiality Building Block. The two 
projects are Data Confidentiality: Identifying and Protecting Assets 
and Data Against Data Breaches and Data Confidentiality: Detect, 
Respond to, and Recover from Data Breaches. 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 Data Confidentiality Building Block. 
Participation in the building block is open to all interested 
organizations and organizations may participate in one or both data 
Confidentiality projects.

DATES: 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. Parties 
interested in participating in both data confidentiality projects must 
submit a separate letter of interest for each data confidentiality 
project. 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 5, 2020. When the building block has been completed, NIST will 
post a notice announcing the completion of the building block and 
informing the public that it will no longer accept letters of interest 
for this building block on the NCCoE Data Confidentiality Building 
Block website at https://www.nccoe.nist.gov/projects/building-blocks/data-security/dc-detect-identify-protect_forDataConfidentiality: 
Identifying and Protecting Assets and Data Against Data Breaches, and 
at https://www.nccoe.nist.gov/projects/building-blocks/data-security/dc-detect-respond-recoverfor_DataConfidentiality: Detect, Respond to 
and Recover from Data Breaches.

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 separate consortium Cooperative Research 
and Development Agreement (CRADA) with NIST for each Data 
Confidentiality Building Block project. An NCCoE consortium CRADA 
template can be found at: http://nccoe.nist.gov/node/138.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Jennifer Cawthra via email to 
[email protected]; by telephone 240.328.4584; or by mail to 
National Institute of Standards and Technology, NCCoE; 9700 Great 
Seneca Highway, Rockville, MD 20850. Additional details about the Data 
Confidentiality Building Block are available at https://www.nccoe.nist.gov/projects/building-blocks/data-security.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 
    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.

[[Page 6145]]

    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 Data 
Confidentiality Building Block. The full building block can be viewed 
at: https://www.nccoe.nist.gov/projects/building-blocks/data-security.
    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: Establish tools and procedures to defend, 
detect, and respond to data confidentiality events.
    A detailed description of the Data Confidentiality Building Block 
is available at: https://www.nccoe.nist.gov/projects/building-blocks/data-security.
    Requirements: Each responding organization's letter of interest 
should identify which security platform component(s) or capability(ies) 
it is offering. Responding organizations must submit a separate letter 
of interest and sign a separate consortium CRADA for each project the 
responding organization is interested in joining. 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 each of the data confidentiality projects (1) Data 
Confidentiality: Identifying and Protecting Assets and Data Against 
Data Breaches, and (2) Data Confidentiality: Detect, and Respond to, 
and Recover from Data Breaches. (for reference, please see the link in 
the PROCESS section above) and include, but are not limited to:
     For Data Confidentiality: Identifying and Protecting 
Assets and Data Against Data Breaches:

 Log collection, collation, and correlation
 Network protection solution
 Network mapping
 Network segmentation
 Network protection
 Browser isolation
 User access controls
 Data management
 Data discovery
 Data inventory
 Data protection
 Protection at rest
* Including file- and system-level encryption
 Protection in transit
 Protection in use
 Protection against the use of removable media
 Policy enforcement
 For Data Confidentiality: Detect, and Respond to and Recover 
from Data Breaches:
 Monitoring
 File
 Network
 Users
 Event detection
 Exfiltration activity
 Unauthorized activity
 Anomalous activity
 Log collection, collation, and correlation of all activities 
within the enterprise
 Reporting capability
 Capability to mitigate data loss
    Each responding organization's letter of interest should identify 
how their products address one or more of the following desired 
solution characteristics in section 3 of each of the Data 
Confidentiality projects (1) Data Confidentiality: Identifying and 
Protecting Assets and Data Against Data Breaches, and (2) Data 
Confidentiality: Detect, Respond to, and Recover from Data Breaches 
(for reference, please see the link in the PROCESS section above):
    1. For Data Confidentiality: Identifying and Protecting Assets and 
Data Against Data Breaches:
     Identify and inventory data and data flows.
     Protect against confidentiality attacks on hosts.
     Protect against confidentiality attacks that occur on the 
network.
     Protect against confidentiality attacks that occur on 
enterprise components.
     Protect enterprise data at rest, in transit, and in use.
     Protect the network and remote access capabilities.
     Provide logging and audit capabilities.
     Provide user access controls to data.
     Provide user authentication mechanisms.
    2. For Data Confidentiality: Detect, Respond to, and Recover from 
Data Breaches:
     Monitor the enterprise's user and data activity.
     Detect unauthorized data flows, user behavior, and data 
access.
     Report unauthorized activity with respect to users and 
data in transit, at rest, or in use to centralized monitoring and 
reporting software.
     Analyze the impact of unauthorized behavior and malicious 
behavior on the network or end points. Determine if a loss of data 
confidentiality is occurring or has occurred.
     Mitigate the impact of such losses of data confidentiality 
by facilitating an effective response to a data breach scenario.
     Contain the effects of a data breach so that more data is 
not exposed.
     Facilitate the recovery effort from data breaches by 
providing detailed information as to the scope and severity of the 
breach.
    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 Data 
Confidentiality 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, FIPS 140-2, SP 800-37, SP 800-
57, SP 800-61, SP 800-83, SP 800-150, SP 800-160, and SP 800-184.
    Additional details about the Data Confidentiality Building Block 
are available at: https://nccoe.nist.gov/projects/building-blocks/data-security.
    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 Data Confidentiality Building Block. 
Prospective

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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 Data 
Confidentiality 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 Data Confidentiality 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 data integrity 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,
Chief of Staff.
[FR Doc. 2020-01993 Filed 2-3-20; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 3510-13-P