Identify devices, data, applications, and vulnerabilities before a destructive data event

Use this document to connect an official requirement or behavior to observable evidence: Identify devices, data, applications, and vulnerabilities before a destructive data event. Only the official source and traced locations below supply facts. Confirm applicability before acting.

Source fact:

The official SP 1800-25, Data Integrity: Identifying and Protecting Assets Against Ransomware and Other Destructive Events from National Institute of Standards and Technology supports the following bounded statements:

• NIST SP 1800-25 treats devices, data, and applications as assets that can become targets of data-integrity attacks. The research record locates this support at Abstract.
• Its example solution combines asset identification and protection methods including backups, secure storage, integrity checks, logs, and vulnerability management. The research record locates this support at Abstract.

These statements are the factual basis for this document. Do not extend them into a broader assurance. Review essential functions, upstream providers, recovery sequences, alternate work paths, and tested recovery objectives only where the source and recorded environment align.

What the source does not establish

The NCCoE example implementation is not a product mandate, complete architecture, or guarantee that any listed technology combination meets a particular recovery objective. It does not establish a deployment’s current state, authorize a production change, prove compliance, or show that identity, DNS, communications, facilities, suppliers, and the people authorized to invoke recovery are healthy. Documented options are review inputs, not universal mandates.

Applicability questions

• For source statement 1 at Abstract, which observable configuration, record, or test can confirm applicability here?
• For source statement 2 at Abstract, which observable configuration, record, or test can confirm applicability here?
• Within essential functions, upstream providers, recovery sequences, alternate work paths, and tested recovery objectives, which versions, roles, and configuration states define the review population?
• Could identity, DNS, communications, facilities, suppliers, and the people authorized to invoke recovery invalidate the test, hide a failure, or change applicability?
• Who owns the decision, and which observation requires stopping, escalation, or rollback?

DSE recommendation:

DSE recommends using the cited source as the evidence anchor for this decision. Start with applicability, then compare the observed state with the cited source. Record the source location, examined part of essential functions, upstream providers, recovery sequences, alternate work paths, and tested recovery objectives, observed and expected states, owner, and reason for deviation.

An implementation decision needs an owner, approved window, prechecks, observable outcome, stop authority, and rollback path. Validate identity, DNS, communications, facilities, suppliers, and the people authorized to invoke recovery before and after the test, and store only sanitized operational evidence.

Verification and evidence

Evidence should let another reviewer reproduce this decision. Retain observations beside the traced locations Abstract; Abstract. Favor business-impact records, dependency maps, exercise results, recovery timings, and open corrective actions, linked to stable identifiers, time, and operator.

Close the review only when the evidence, exception handling, resulting action, and after-state are linked. Schedule a new review after material technical, organizational, incident, or source changes; today’s observation is not a continuing guarantee.

Official references

• SP 1800-25, Data Integrity: Identifying and Protecting Assets Against Ransomware and Other Destructive Events — National Institute of Standards and Technology