CM.L2-3.4.5  

Reference: CMMC 2.11

Family: CM

Level Introduced: 2

Title: Access Restrictions for Change

Practice:
Define, document, approve, and enforce physical and logical access restrictions associated with changes to organizational systems.

CMMC Clarification:
Define, identify, and document qualified individuals authorized to have access and make physical and logical changes to the organization's hardware, software, software libraries or firmware components. Control of configuration management activities may involve:
• physical access control which prohibits unauthorized users from gaining physical access to an asset (e.g., requiring a special key card to enter a server room);
• logical access control which prevents unauthorized users from logging onto a system to make configuration changes (e.g., requiring specific credentials for modifying configuration settings, patching software, or updating software libraries);
• workflow automation in which configuration management workflow rules define human tasks and data or files are routed between people authorized to do configuration management based on pre-defined business rules (e.g., passing an electronic form to a manager requesting approval of configuration change made by an authorized employee);
• an abstraction layer for configuration management that requires changes be made from an external system through constrained interface (e.g., software updates can only be made from a patch management system with a specific IP address); and
• utilization of a configuration management change window (e.g., software updates are only allowed between 8:00 AM and 10:00 AM or between 6:00PM and 8:00PM).

Example 1
You are in charge of IT operations in your organization responsible for configuration management. You need to add an additional network storage appliance to a server farm. However, all of your organization's servers have been consolidated into a single data center that has locked doors. To gain access to that data center, you request and are granted a key card which allows you to enter the data center and modify the hardware configuration.

Example 2
You are responsible for patching your organization's software as soon as new versions are released or when emergency patching is required. You configure the patch management system to push patches to all endpoints in the enterprise as soon as a patch or update is available, has been confirmed to have been received from the proper source, and has been validated.

Source: CMMC v2.0