How The NIST Cybersecurity Framework is enhanced by Identity Continuity

As recent events have shown, our technology systems are so connected that any interruption can cause global chaos. Organizations need robust defenses to protect their data and operations, and it starts with identity. 

The NIST Cybersecurity Framework is comprised of six core functions: Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond, Recover, and Govern. It provides a structured approach to cybersecurity. Within this framework, maintaining identity resilience is essential for reliable security management. By ensuring consistent and secure identity practices, organizations can better align with NIST guidelines and strengthen their overall cybersecurity posture.

The resilience part of NIST maps to the respond and recover requirements. In this article, we’ll explore how these concepts integrate and provide takeaways on how organizations can take actionable steps to maintain identity continuity.

Background of the NIST Cybersecurity Framework

The NIST Cybersecurity Framework is a set of guidelines and best practices designed to help organizations manage and reduce cybersecurity risk. It is comprised of six core functions:

• Identify
• Protect
• Detect
• Respond
• Recover
• Govern

Each function addresses specific aspects of cybersecurity that work together towards a holistic approach to protecting digital assets.

A reliable foundation for continuity starts with identity orchestration

Identity orchestration involves managing and streamlining the authentication and authorization processes across various systems. Identity continuity ensures that these identity processes remain operational, even during disruptions. Together, they provide a seamless and secure experience, critical for maintaining the integrity of an organization’s cybersecurity posture.

Let’s explore each core function of NIST and how identity and continuity play key roles in these critical steps. 

NIST Function “Identify”

The Identify function is about having a clear view and understanding of the organization’s cybersecurity landscape. It involves discovering applications, policies, identities, and user communities (such as customers and workforce).

Organizations can gain comprehensive insights into their digital environment with a robust approach to identity and continuity. By leveraging advanced discovery tools and structured methodologies, they can get a thorough and accurate inventory of all digital assets, which is crucial for developing a resilient cybersecurity strategy.

Discover applications, policies, and identities: The first step is to discover and catalog all applications and identity infrastructures, creating both an application fabric and an identity fabric. Modern discovery tools can merge these capabilities to achieve comprehensive discovery and cataloging of applications and identities.

Classify resources based on risk and cost of downtime: Once identified, resources need to be classified according to their risk levels and the potential cost of downtime. For example, critical business applications like financial systems require much higher protection levels than cafeteria menus.

Catalog applications and identity infrastructure: Cataloging discovered applications (app fabric) and identities (identity fabric) into structured frameworks is crucial for continuity since applications are the assets that need protection.

Highlight gaps with routine continuity tests: Regular continuity tests can reveal gaps in the system, ensuring that all critical applications and identities have the right continuity policies in place. Companies may want to simulate continuity scenarios to ensure all high-risk applications have continuity policies.

NIST function: “protect”

The “protect” function focuses on deploying safeguards to ensure that critical infrastructure services are delivered. Implementing measures that uphold the integrity and availability of identity systems even during adverse conditions is key here. 

Having a strong identity continuity framework ensures that protective measures are always in place and functioning. This proactive stance helps organizations maintain seamless operations, reduce vulnerabilities, and safeguard critical identity infrastructure against disruptions.

Ensuring continuous identity operations: Continuity is essential for maintaining identity operations across different environments, whether it’s cloud-to-cloud or cloud-to-on-premises. For example, continuous operations between cloud environments ensure that identity services remain available even if one cloud provider experiences issues.

Zero trust authentication for applications and data: When a zero trust architecture is in place, every access request must be authenticated and authorized. Here, continuity is crucial to ensure these processes are always available. As organizations adopt zero trust models, the reliance on continuous authentication and authorization rises substantially.

Controlling access and authorization: Controlling access and authorization to applications and data is extremely important since continuous identity operations are essential to maintain security and compliance.

Disaster recovery: Much like Volvo’s open-source seatbelt initiative (if you don’t know the Volvo seatbelt innovation story, check it out), which paved the way for universal adoption across the auto industry, disaster recovery solutions should be accessible and robust to all. For example, the IDQL identity standard can be used for translating and backing up policies and allow companies to restore operations across different cloud platforms.

NIST function “detect”

The “detect” function involves identifying cybersecurity events as timely as possible. Detect requires robust monitoring and analytics to recognize and respond to potential threats effectively.

With continuous monitoring and advanced analytics, organizations can detect anomalies and potential threats before they escalate. By integrating identity and continuity strategies, any disruptions in identity services are quickly identified and addressed.

Detect outages or slowdowns in identity infrastructure: Using continuous monitoring and health checks to detect outages or slowdowns can help proactively identify any issues.

Centralized analytics and reporting of identity and access availability: Having a centralized analytics and reporting tool to monitor identity and access availability helps with regular continuity testing and detecting compromises or gaps.

Detect issues with canary and round-robin: Techniques like canary deployments and round-robin load balancing can ensure continuous operation by regularly testing secondary systems.

NIST function “respond”

The “respond” function is about taking action to mitigate the impact of detected cybersecurity events. Typically, this involves executing response plans to minimize damage and restore normal operations as quickly as possible.

A comprehensive identity continuity framework enables organizations to respond effectively to incidents. With predefined failover and recovery processes, organizations can ensure identity services are promptly restored, minimizing the impact on operations and maintaining business continuity.

Continuous identity: The importance of having failover and fail-back mechanisms to ensure continuous identity operations cannot be overstated. For “respond”, custom actions and integration with service management tools like ServiceNow are recommended. These tools provide the flexibility of tailored responses to incidents, including automated failover to backup identity providers.

NIST function “recover”

The “recover” function focuses on restoring normal operations after a cybersecurity incident. Recover involves recovery planning and execution to ensure systems and services are brought back online with minimal downtime.

By integrating identity and continuity strategies, organizations can ensure a fast and effective recovery from incidents, including:

• The ability to restore identity policies and services across different platforms 
• Enhancing resilience 
• Reducing the time to full recovery

Incident management: The need for effective incident management includes quick failover and fail-back processes to minimize downtime. The ability to restore operations in different identity providers if needed can provide much-needed flexibility and resilience.

Run the DR recovery backup/restore: The capability to back up and restore identity policies and resources efficiently ensures a much quicker recovery and better resilience than traditional disaster recovery solutions.

NIST function “govern”

The “govern” function is about maintaining oversight and management of the organization’s cybersecurity policies, including continuous monitoring and documentation to ensure ongoing compliance and effectiveness.

Effective governance ensures that identity and continuity measures are consistently applied and maintained. Typically, governance involves regular audits, policy updates, and comprehensive documentation to manage and mitigate risks effectively.

Continuous monitoring: Continuous monitoring and policy management help ensure the cybersecurity framework remains effective.

Policy documentation and management: Maintaining comprehensive records of access requests, application fabrics, and identity fabrics can help manage and govern the cybersecurity infrastructure effectively.

Identity Continuity to enhance IDP resilience 

We’ve learned that integrating Identity Orchestration and continuity into the NIST Cybersecurity Framework provides a robust foundation for managing cybersecurity risks. When identity processes can operate continuously, organizations can enhance their resilience against cyber threats and align with best practices and compliance requirements. 

Strata’s approach, consisting of multiple layers of security and continuity, work together to keep your operations running smoothly and securely.

Don’t let unplanned IDP outages disrupt your critical applications. With Strata’s Maverics Identity Continuity, you get seamless access and operational resilience across all your identity providers. Our platform integrates health monitoring, intelligent failover options, and outage simulations to keep your identity systems always available. 

Ready to learn more about how Maverics can protect your identity infrastructure? Book a demo today.