SI.L2-3.14.6  

Reference: CMMC 2.11

Family: SI

Level Introduced: 2

Title: Monitor Communications for Attacks

Practice:
Monitor organizational systems, including inbound and outbound communications traffic, to detect attacks and indicators of potential attacks.

CMMC Clarification:
Organizations should leverage their monitoring systems to look for indicators of attacks. Think of indicators of attack as a series of actions that an adversary conducts in advance of an attack. Indicators of attack concern the steps involved and the intent of the adversary.

Indicators of attacks on organizational systems may include:
• internal traffic that indicates the presence of malicious code;
• malicious code detected during non-business hours;
• the unauthorized data leaving the organization; and
• communicating to external information systems.

To detect attacks and indicators of attacks with success, deploy monitoring devices. Place these devices within the systems at strategic points to collect essential information. Strategic points include internal and external system boundaries. The organization should monitor both inbound traffic and outbound traffic.

Example
You are in charge of IT operations at your organization. You look for attacks to your network. To do this, you monitor all organizational systems. You also watch communications to and from your machines. You look for indicators, or things that don't look like they should. These indicators can show up in many places on your network. You should monitor important places on your network. These places might include:
• perimeter locations, or locations your networks connect to the internet;
• machines that have important software or data on them that attackers might want to
access; and
• your remote connections which may be a way to gain access to your network from the outside.

Perform additional monitoring when you find an indicator, or something that doesn't perform as it should. This extra monitoring should tell you if it is a current or potential attack.

Set up your monitoring activities so that they support your organization's planning. Develop your monitoring requirements as part of your organization's security activities. Ensure that your monitoring activities meet the security needs of your organization.

Source: CMMC v2.0