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Governance, Risk, Audit & Privacy · Intermediate

High-Water Mark

Principle that a system's overall impact level equals the highest impact level of any security objective or information type it handles.

Definition

Under FIPS 200, if any of confidentiality, integrity, or availability is high, the system is treated as high impact for baseline selection. The concept also applies to data aggregation, where combined information takes the highest classification.

Example

A system with low confidentiality, low integrity, and high availability is categorized high overall.

Exam tip

Apply the highest value across all three objectives and all information types.

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