Welcome to Lesson 13. Okay, let's see if we can't get a feel for how the NIST Cybersecurity Framework might work. In this lesson, we will undertake an abbreviated version of the framework process. Let's pretend that we are the system security officer for a drinking water facility that provides 80% of the water for a medium sized city of about 450,000 residents in Colorado. Let's say that we've already met with the senior management, and they've agreed to make our first attempt at employing the NIST Cybersecurity Framework over the next year. In essence, completing steps one and two of the system framework. We're now six months into the project, and we've developed a current profile using the framework core according to step three. According to our analysis, we rate ourselves at tier one, partial. Indicating that our risk management process has not previously been formalized, there's been no organization wide approach to managing cybersecurity risk, and we have not included our suppliers in any past risk assessments. Okay, this puts us up to step four, conduct a risk assessment. We know there is a very low, but nonzero probability of malicious cyber attack that could disrupt 100% of the utility service for up to a week. Question, is our current cyber security profile sufficient, or should we take the next step and try to achieve tier level two? What do you think? Pause this video if necessary, to consider your answer before we continue. Did you think about it? What's your answer? Yes, we should try to attain a higher tier level? Or no, we are sufficiently protected by our current profile? Given the circumstances in this example, that the utility supplies drinking water to 80% or 450,000 residents, I would say yes. We should try to attain at least the next tier level, tier level two. Consider that you are looking at loosing not only your drinking water supply, but also pressure to your fire hydrants. Government, businesses, and schools might have to shut down. The National Guard might have to be called in to help set up points of distribution for drinking water. I hope you agree that such a situation would be considered catastrophic. Okay, so management approves our recommendation to implement actions that will raise our current cybersecurity profile to at least level two. So we proceed to step five, and we create a target profile using the framework core. So we now go on to step six, to identify and prioritize gaps. We step through every category and sub category in the framework core, comparing our current profile to the target profile. We note that under the access control category, we pretty much comply with sub categories one, two, and three. That is to say, user names and passwords are required for the computer control system. The computer control system is kept in a locked strong room, to which only system administrators have the lock and code. And this system is configured to prevent any unauthorized access over the Internet. According to our target profile, the next step would be to try to implement access control subcategory four, and further differentiate user access rights according to the principles of least privilege. At present, all 35 utility employees have system accounts. With the exception of the three system administrators, all accounts have the same non-administrative access rights. Got all that? Good, now let's set it aside and take a look at the Awareness and Training category. And notice that we have implemented none of it's subcategories. All 35 employees were granted a system account without undergoing any kind of internal training. Okay, here we are in step six. We've identified two security measures among many others that are required to raise our current profile to tier two. The question is, which should be granted higher priority? Do you think implementing Access Control Subcategory 4, further differentiating access rights based on the principle of least privileged is more important? Or do you think that creating a training program before granting system access, according to Awareness and Training Subcategory 1, is more important? Again, pause the video if necessary to consider your answer. Did you make your choice? Did you assign higher priority to Access Control Subcategory 4? Or did you assign higher priority to Awareness and Training Subcategory 1? The correct answer is, there is no correct answer. Even if some of you said both should have the same priority. A strong argument could be made to give either measure precedence over the other. The one you choose depends upon a lot of factors, not the least of which is your own knowledge and experience. This is perfectly legitimate. The point is you've identified the gaps and you can reasonably assess the risk of each. You have advanced your organization from ignorance to understanding. You can now craft a risk-based strategy for implementing whichever measure you choose first, and you are aware of the latent risk of doing the other second. The point of this exercise was to provide you some insight into the actual application of the NIST Cybersecurity Framework. And give you some appreciation for the challenges attended to the task. Please join me next time as we continue our examination of the NIST Cybersecurity Framework. Thank you.