NIST helps on security budgets

Draft Special Publication 800-65, Integrating Security into the Capital Planning and Investment Control Process

Agency officials struggling to include information-security outlays in their budget requests may find help in a publication released today by the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

The draft document, NIST Special Publication 800-65, presents seven steps to ensure that information technology budget requests meet the requirements of the Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002.

Under FISMA, federal agencies must make information security planning part of their capital budgeting process for the first time. NIST technical experts wrote the new document to help agencies identify high-priority security needs that should get priority funds.

NIST officials will accept comments on the document though Aug. 12 at sec-cpic@nist.gov.