IAC-16.2: Privileged Account Separation

There is no evidence of a capability to separate privileged accounts between infrastructure environments to reduce the risk of a compromise in one infrastructure environment from laterally affecting other infrastructure environments.

C|P-CMM1 is N/A, since a structured process is required to separate privileged accounts between infrastructure environments to reduce the risk of a compromise in one infrastructure environment from laterally affecting other infrastructure environments.

C|P-CMM2 is N/A, since a well-defined process is required to separate privileged accounts between infrastructure environments to reduce the risk of a compromise in one infrastructure environment from laterally affecting other infrastructure environments.

Identification & Authentication (IAC) efforts are standardized across the organization and centrally managed, where technically feasible, to ensure consistency. CMM Level 3 control maturity would reasonably expect all, or at least most, the following criteria to exist:

• An Identity & Access Management (IAM) function, or similar function, centrally manages permissions and implements “least privileges” Role Based Access Control (RBAC) practices for the management of user, group and system accounts, including privileged accounts.
• The Human Resources (HR) department governs personnel management operations and notifies IAM personnel of personnel role changes for RBAC-based provisioning and deprovisioning actions.
• An IT Asset Management (ITAM) function, or similar function, categorizes endpoint devices according to the data the asset stores, transmits and/ or processes and applies the appropriate technology controls to protect the asset and data that conform to industry-recognized standards for hardening (e.g., DISA STIGs, CIS Benchmarks or OEM security guides).
• An IT infrastructure team, or similar function, ensures that statutory, regulatory and contractual cybersecurity and data privacy obligations are addressed to ensure secure configurations are designed, built and maintained.
• Active Directory (AD), or a similar technology, is used to centrally manage identities and permissions. Only by exception due to a technical or business limitation are solutions authorized to operate a decentralized access control program for systems, applications and services.

See C|P-CMM3. There are no defined C|P-CMM4 criteria, since it is reasonable to assume a quantitatively-controlled process is not necessary to separate privileged accounts between infrastructure environments to reduce the risk of a compromise in one infrastructure environment from laterally affecting other infrastructure environments.

See C|P-CMM4. There are no defined C|P-CMM5 criteria, since it is reasonable to assume a continuously-improving process is not necessary to separate privileged accounts between infrastructure environments to reduce the risk of a compromise in one infrastructure environment from laterally affecting other infrastructure environments.