What this control covers
This control requires identifying, reporting, and correcting system flaws, and installing security-relevant software and firmware updates within a defined time period after the release. This includes patches, service packs, hot fixes, and anti-virus signatures. Organizations must address flaws discovered during security assessments, continuous monitoring, incident response, and error handling. This control supports the Flaw Remediation System capability within the System and Communications Protection (3.14) family.
Why it matters
How quickly and methodically you contain an incident determines the regulatory consequence — most fines are not for the breach itself but for the slow or absent response.
How to implement
AWS
Wire GuardDuty, Security Hub and Macie findings into your ticketing/SIEM via EventBridge. Maintain documented playbooks for IAM-key compromise, EC2 instance compromise, S3 data exposure, and run quarterly tabletop exercises.
Azure
Use Defender for Cloud + Microsoft Sentinel with playbooks (Logic Apps) for automated containment — disable user, isolate VM (NSG), revoke session tokens. Keep an on-call rotation in Teams with PagerDuty.
GCP
Org Policy Service for guardrails and Config Validator in CI to pre-check Terraform plans against policy as code (Rego).
Google Workspace
Forward the Admin, Login, Drive, Token and Mobile audit logs to Cloud Logging (Workspace BigQuery export). Alert on impossible-travel logins, OAuth-scope grants for high-risk scopes, and external Drive sharing of sensitive labels.
GitHub
Subscribe to secret-scanning alerts and Dependabot security advisories; require triage SLAs by severity. For exposed secrets, rotate at the cloud provider FIRST then revoke at GitHub — order matters.
Evidence to collect
ticketing_workflow— See the iCompaas Evidence library for the canonical source for this evidence type.
Workflow metrics (ServiceNow, Jira) show approvals and remediation. Focus: Flaw Remediation.
Quick checklist
- Response — Management / Time
- Time — Management / Time
- Protection — Management / Time
- System — Management / Time
- Incident — Management / Time
- Security — Management / Time
Related articles on this site
- Ensure System Updates, Patches, and Security Software Are Installed
- NIST 800-171 3.14.3 Monitor system security alerts and advisories and take action in response.
- NIST 800-171 3.13.9 Terminate network connections associated with communications sessions at the end of the sessions or after a defined period of inactivity.
- NIST 800-171 3.3.1 Create and retain system audit logs and records to the extent needed to enable the monitoring, analysis, investigation, and reporting of unlawful or unauthorized system activity