SEA-02.3: Technical Debt Reviews

There is no evidence of a capability to conduct ongoing “technical debt” reviews of hardware and software technologies to remediate outdated and/ or unsupported technologies.

C|P-CMM1 is N/A, since a structured process is required to conduct ongoing “technical debt” reviews of hardware and software technologies to remediate outdated and/ or unsupported technologies.

C|P-CMM2 is N/A, since a well-defined process is required to conduct ongoing “technical debt” reviews of hardware and software technologies to remediate outdated and/ or unsupported technologies.

Secure Engineering & Architecture (SEA) 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:

• IT/cybersecurity architects, or a similar function, enable the implementation a “layered defense” network architecture that enables a resilient defense-in-depth approach through the use of industry-recognized cybersecurity and data privacy practices in the specification, design, development, implementation and modification of systems and services (e.g., DISA STIGs, CIS Benchmarks or OEM security guides).
• IT/cybersecurity engineers, or a similar function, operationalize enterprise architecture, aligned with industry-recognized leading practices, with consideration for cybersecurity and data privacy principles, including resiliency expectations, that addresses risk to organizational operations, assets, individuals, other organizations.
• A Validated Architecture Design Review (VADR), or similar process, is used to evaluate design criteria for secure practices and conformance with requirements for applicable statutory, regulatory and contractual controls to determine if the system/application/service is designed, built and operated in a secure and resilient manner.
• A Change Advisory Board (CAB), or similar function, governs changes to systems, applications and services to ensure their stability, reliability and predictability.
• A formal Change Management (CM) program helps to ensure that no unauthorized changes are made, all changes are documented, services are not disrupted and resources are used efficiently.
• An Identity & Access Management (IAM) function, or similar function, enables the implementation of identification and access management controls for “least privileges” practices, allowing for the management of user, group and system accounts, including privileged accounts.
• An IT Asset Management (ITAM) function, or similar function, categorizes assets according to the data the asset stores, transmits and/ or processes and applies the appropriate technology controls to protect the asset and data.

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 conduct ongoing “technical debt” reviews of hardware and software technologies to remediate outdated and/ or unsupported technologies.

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 conduct ongoing “technical debt” reviews of hardware and software technologies to remediate outdated and/ or unsupported technologies.