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Governance, Risk, Audit & Privacy · Intermediate

Control Baseline

Predefined set of controls serving as a starting point for protecting a system at a given impact level.

Definition

NIST SP 800-53B provides low, moderate, and high security baselines and a privacy baseline. Organizations tailor baselines to their environment. Other sources of baselines include FedRAMP baselines, CNSSI 1253, and CIS Benchmarks for configurations.

Example

A moderate-impact system starts from the SP 800-53B moderate baseline of roughly 287 controls and enhancements.

Exam tip

A control baseline (set of controls) differs from a configuration baseline (system settings).

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