Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Risk Management in the Enterprise: Two Draft Special Publications Available for Comment

NIST is posting two draft Special Publications (SP) on the Enterprise Impact of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Risk, with a public comment period open through September 6, 2022.

The increasing dependency on ICT means that all enterprises must ensure ICT risks receive the appropriate attention along with other risk disciplines –legal, financial, etc. – within their enterprise risk management (ERM) programs. These documents and resources are intended to help ICT risk practitioners at all levels of the enterprise, in private and public sectors, to better understand and practice ICT risk management (ICTRM) within the context of ERM.  Using organizing constructs, such as risk appetite and tolerance statements, business impact analysis (BIA), risk registers, and key risk indicators, enterprises, can better identify, assess, communicate, monitor, and manage their ICT risks in the context of their stated mission and business objectives using language and constructs already familiar to senior leaders.

• NIST Special Publication 800-221 ipd (initial public draft), Enterprise Impact of Information and Communications Technology Risk: Governing and Managing ICT Risk Programs Within an Enterprise Risk Portfolio, promotes a greater understanding of the relationship between ICT risk management and ERM, and the benefits of integrating those approaches.
• NIST Special Publication 800-221A ipd, Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Risk Outcomes: Integrating ICT Risk Management Programs with the Enterprise Risk Portfolio, provides a set of desired outcomes and applicable references that are common across all types of ICT risk. It provides a common language for understanding, managing, and expressing ICT risk to internal and external stakeholders. It can be used to help identify and prioritize actions for reducing ICT risk, and it is a tool for aligning policy, business, and technological approaches to managing that risk. Using this approach for each type of ICT risk will help organizations improve the quality and consistency of ICT risk information they provide as inputs to their ERM programs. That, in turn, will help organizations address all forms of ICT risk more effectively in their ERM.  This publication complements SP 800-221 as the ICTRM catalog of outcomes. SP 800-221A can be browsed and downloaded in standardized JSON and Excel formats. 

The public comment period for both drafts is open through September 6, 2022. See the publication details of SP 800-221 and SP 800-221A for downloads and instructions for submitting comments.

NOTE: A call for patent claims is included in each draft. For additional information, see the Information Technology Laboratory (ITL) Patent Policy--Inclusion of Patents in ITL Publications.