The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has released an initial public draft for Rev 5 of the agency’s National Checklist Program (NCP) that facilitates the generation of security checklists from authoritative sources, centralizes the location of checklists, and makes checklists broadly accessible.
Notably, the new draft includes within its scope cloud platforms, IoT, and AI systems.
The new draft publication, released on Dec. 9, “explains how to use the NCP to find and retrieve checklists and describes the policies, procedures, and general requirements for participation in the NCP,” NIST said.
The agency is seeking public comments on the new draft through Jan. 26 at checklists@nist.gov.
NIST first created the NCP in 2003 by launching its Security Configuration Checklists Program for IT products. The agency evolved it into the broader NCP that hosts numerous security checklists for hardening systems, with official guidance published later including SP 800-70 Rev. 2 in 2011.
The agency said the latest draft guidance “introduces significant updates to improve usability, automation, and alignment with modern cybersecurity practices.”
In particular, NIST explained that the new draft features:
- “Enhanced mapping concepts between checklist settings, NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) 2.0 outcomes, SP 800-53 controls, and Common Configuration Enumeration (CCE) identifiers for evidence-ready automation and reporting;”
- “Guidance that includes cloud platforms, IoT, and AI systems and reflects the latest NIST research and federal requirements;”
- “Explicit support for a wide range of automated checklist formats;”
- “A control catalog approach that “encourages developers to use catalogs of controls for rapid, consistent checklist generation and easier tailoring to different risk postures;”
- Operational environment tailoring, including “detailed recommendations for customizing checklists to fit stand-alone, managed (enterprise), specialized security-limited functionality (SSLF), and legacy environments;” and
- A checklist lifecycle featuring “clear procedures for checklist development, testing, documentation, submission, public review, maintenance, and archival.”