[Federal Register Volume 86, Number 193 (Friday, October 8, 2021)]
[Notices]
[Pages 56252-56254]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2021-21979]


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DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE

National Institute of Standards and Technology

[Docket No. 210915-0187]


National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) Data 
Classification Practices: Facilitating Data-Centric Security Management

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 letters of interest describing 
products and technical expertise to support and demonstrate security 
platforms for the Data Classification Practices: Facilitating Data-
Centric Security Management project. 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 Classification Practices: 
Facilitating Data-Centric Security Management project. Participation in 
the project 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 
November 8, 2021.

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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. 
Interested parties can access the letter of interest template by 
visiting https://www.nccoe.nist.gov/projects/building-blocks/data-classification and completing the letter of interest webform. NIST will 
announce the completion of the selection of participants and inform the 
public that it is no longer accepting letters of interest for this 
project at https://www.nccoe.nist.gov/projects/building-blocks/data-classification. Organizations whose letters of interest are accepted 
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://nccoe.nist.gov/library/nccoe-consortium-crada-example.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: William Newhouse via telephone at 301-
975-0232; by email to [email protected]; or by mail to National 
Institute of Standards and Technology, NCCoE; 9700 Great Seneca 
Highway, Rockville, MD 20850. Additional details about the Data 
Classification Practices: Facilitating Data-Centric Security Management 
project are available at https://www.nccoe.nist.gov/projects/building-blocks/data-classification.

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.
    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 
Classification Practices: Facilitating Data-Centric Security Management 
project. The full project can be viewed at: https://www.nccoe.nist.gov/projects/building-blocks/data-classification.
    Interested parties can access the template for a letter of interest 
by visiting the project website at https://www.nccoe.nist.gov/projects/building-blocks/data-classification and completing the letter of 
interest webform. On completion of the webform, interested parties will 
receive access to the letter of interest template, which the party must 
complete, certify as accurate, and submit to NIST by email or hardcopy. 
NIST will contact interested parties if there are questions regarding 
the responsiveness of the letters of interest to the project 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 project. When the project has been 
completed, NIST will post a notice on the Data Classification 
Practices: Facilitating Data-Centric Security Management project 
website at https://www.nccoe.nist.gov/projects/building-blocks/data-classification announcing the completion of the project and informing 
the public that it will no longer accept letters of interest for this 
project. Completed letters of interest should be submitted to NIST and 
will be accepted on a first come, first served basis. There may be 
continuing opportunity to participate even after initial activity 
commences for participants who were not selected initially or have 
submitted the letter of interest after the selection process. Selected 
participants will be required to enter into a consortium CRADA with 
NIST (for reference, see ADDRESSES section above).
    Project Objective: Data-centric security management aims to enhance 
protection of information (data) regardless of where the data resides 
or with whom it is shared. This requires that organizations know what 
data they have, what its characteristics are, and what security and 
privacy requirements it needs to meet so the necessary protections can 
be achieved. Standardized mechanisms for communicating data 
characteristics and protection requirements are needed to support zero 
trust architectures by making data-centric security management feasible 
at scale.
    The project's objective is to develop technology-agnostic 
recommended practices for defining data classifications and data 
handling rulesets and for communicating them to others. This project 
will inform, and may identify opportunities to improve, existing 
cybersecurity and privacy risk management processes by helping with 
communicating data classifications and data handling rulesets. It will 
not replace current risk management practices, laws, regulations, or 
mandates. The project will define the approach for the solution, 
independent of the supporting technologies, services, architectures, 
operational environments, etc. As part of this, a proof-of-concept 
implementation of the defined approach will be attempted. The proof-of-
concept will include limited data discovery, analysis, classification, 
and labeling capabilities, as well as a rudimentary method for 
expressing how data with a particular label should be handled for each 
use case scenario. In support of this phase of the project, basic 
terminology and concepts will be defined based on existing practices 
and guidance to provide a common language for discussing data 
classification. The proposed proof-of-concept solution(s) will 
integrate commercial and open source products that leverage 
cybersecurity standards and recommended practices to demonstrate the 
use case scenarios detailed in the Data Classification Practices: 
Facilitating Data-Centric Security Management project description 
available at: https://www.nccoe.nist.gov/projects/building-blocks/data-classification. This project will result in a publicly available NIST 
Cybersecurity Practice Guide as a Special Publication 1800 series, a 
detailed implementation guide of the practical steps needed to 
implement a cybersecurity reference design that addresses this 
challenge.
    Requirements for Letters of Interest: Each responding 
organization's letter of interest should identify which security 
platform component(s) or capability(ies) it is 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 Data Classification Practices: 
Facilitating Data-Centric Security Management project description at 
https://www.nccoe.nist.gov/projects/building-blocks/data-classification 
and include, but are not limited to:
    Core Components:
     Endpoints:
    [cir] Client Devices--Various PCs (desktops or laptops) and mobile

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devices will be involved in data creation, storage, transmission, 
retention, and destruction, as well as data-centric security 
management. Some client devices will be managed by the organization. 
Some will be used by the organization's employees, while others will be 
used by people from other organizations.
    [cir] Client Device Apps--The client devices will have commercial-
off-the-shelf (COTS) apps used for data lifecycle activities, such as 
word processing software and email client software.
    [cir] Additional Devices--Examples of additional types of devices 
that could be utilized are networked printers and Internet of Things 
(IoT) devices.
     Network/Infrastructure Devices--The architecture will 
include devices such as firewalls, routers, or switches that are needed 
for network functionality and network traffic restriction, as well as 
the software for managing those devices.
     Services and Applications--The architecture will include 
several types of services and applications that are involved in data 
lifecycle activities for one or more of the scenarios. The following 
are examples of possible service and application types:
    [cir] Enterprise Services/Applications: Email, collaboration, file 
sharing, web conferencing, file/data backup, code repositories, content 
management systems.
    [cir] Data Services/Applications: Data processing, data analytics, 
artificial intelligence/machine learning services.
    [cir] Business Services/Applications: A variety of system-to-system 
and human-to-system business applications, both COTS and custom-
written, including those that produce and/or consume data.
     Data Classification Solutions--The architecture will 
include several types of components used to perform data classification 
responsibilities, such as data discovery, inventory, analysis, 
classification, and labeling.
    Each responding organization's letter of interest should identify 
how its products help address one or more of the following desired 
security characteristics and properties in section 3 of the Data 
Classification Practices: Facilitating Data-Centric Security Management 
at https://www.nccoe.nist.gov/projects/building-blocks/data-classification:
     All data is discovered and analyzed to determine how it 
should be classified.
     All data classification and data handling ruleset 
creation, modification, and deletion is restricted to authorized 
personnel only, with all actions logged and auditable and with all 
communications protected.
     For all data classifications and data handling rulesets, 
there is a mechanism for verifying the integrity of the policy or 
ruleset.
     Data classification labels or tags are assigned to all 
data.
     For all data classification labels or tags assigned to 
data, there is a mechanism for verifying the integrity of the label or 
tag.
    In their letters of interest, responding organizations need to 
acknowledge the importance of and 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 
Classification Practices: Facilitating Data-Centric Security Management 
project, which will be conducted in a manner consistent with the 
following standards and guidance: FIPS 199, NISTIR 8112, FIPS 200, SP 
800-37, SP 800-53, SP 800-60, SP 800-63, SP 800-154, SP 800-171, SP 
800-207, the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, and the NIST Privacy 
Framework.
    Additional details about the Data Classification Practices: 
Facilitating Data-Centric Security Management project are available at 
https://www.nccoe.nist.gov/projects/building-blocks/data-classification.
    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 Classification Practices: Facilitating 
Data-Centric Security Management project. 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 Data Classification Practices: 
Facilitating Data-Centric Security Management project. 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 Classification 
Practices: Facilitating Data-Centric Security Management project 
capability will be announced on the NCCoE website at least two weeks in 
advance at https://nccoe.nist.gov/. The expected outcome will 
demonstrate how the components of the Data Classification Practices: 
Facilitating Data-Centric Security Management project architecture can 
provide security capabilities to mitigate identified risks related to 
data throughout its lifecycle. 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 
https://nccoe.nist.gov/.

Alicia Chambers,
NIST Executive Secretariat.
[FR Doc. 2021-21979 Filed 10-7-21; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 3510-13-P