NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 SC-12(3) — Asymmetric Keys

What this control requires

Produce, control, and distribute asymmetric cryptographic keys using NSA-approved key management technology, prepositioned keying material, DoD-approved or DoD-issued Medium Assurance PKI certificates, or hardware security tokens that protect the user's private key. This ensures compliance with industry standards and best practices for key management, as outlined in SP 800-56A, SP 800-56B, SP 800-56C, and SP 800-57. This control supports the Asymmetric Key Management System capability within the System and Communications Protection family.

In plain English

Produce, control, and distribute asymmetric cryptographic keys using NSA-approved key management technology, prepositioned keying material, DoD-approved or DoD-issued Medium Assurance PKI certificates, or hardware security tokens that protect the user's private key. In practice, this means you can prove you policy management-level controls on a defined cadence.

Why it matters

SP 800-53 is the catalogue every U.S. federal authorisation (FedRAMP, FISMA, CMMC) and most regulated industries point at. A missing control surfaces as a Plan of Action & Milestones (POA&M) item that an Authorizing Official must approve before the Authority To Operate is granted or renewed.

This control is rated critical in the source catalogue. Treat gaps here as production incidents in the risk register, not housekeeping.

What an auditor looks for

A 3PAO (FedRAMP) or Independent Assessor (NIST RMF) tests against NIST SP 800-53A assessment procedures. For each control they expect a documented implementation that addresses every assessment objective (Examine, Interview, Test) and an implementation summary in the System Security Plan.

Within System and Communications Protection, the assessor will trace your implementation back to the catalogue reference (Control SC-12(3)) and look for objective evidence on the latest two assessment cycles.

How to implement

Policy Management

Docs. Keep each policy in version-controlled Markdown alongside the code that implements it; ship a signed PDF snapshot at each annual review and link the SHA into the SoA.

Operational checklist

• Policy. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Security. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Protection. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Hardware. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Cryptographic. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Scope: management, cryptographic keys, tokens, system, protection, hardware, compliance, capability.

Evidence to collect

• Policy Document. A signed and version-controlled policy / standard / procedure document.

Signed policy or standard documents the safeguard. Focus: Asymmetric Keys.

Common pitfalls

• Policies that no engineer has read; the version in Confluence drifts from the version that's actually being enforced.

How it maps to other frameworks

Computed from shared tags, control component and key-operation subjects — handy when you are reconciling controls across an audit.

• NIST SP 800-171 Rev. 3 3.14.3 — Security Alerts, Advisories, and Directives
• ISO/IEC 27001:2022 A.8.24 — Use of cryptography
• HIPAA (45 CFR Part 164) 164.308(a)(5)(i) — Security Awareness and Training
• BSI C5:2020 SP-01 — Documentation, communication and provision of policies and instructions

Related controls in NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5

• Control SC-12(2) — Symmetric Keys
• Control SC-16(2) — Anti-Spoofing Mechanisms
• Control SC-49 — Hardware-Enforced Separation And Policy Enforcement
• Control SC-39(2) — Separate Execution Domain Per Thread
• Control PL-6 — Security-Related Activity Planning
• Control SC-15(4) — Explicitly Indicate Current Participants

References

• NIST Computer Security Resource Center — NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5
• Catalogue identifier: Control SC-12(3)

Topics: governance riskkey managementcertificate managementpolicy management