NIST Cybersecurity Framework¶

NIST CSF: Framework for Improving Critical Infrastructure Cybersecurity

Overview¶

The NIST Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) is a voluntary framework developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to help organizations manage and reduce cybersecurity risk. The framework is organized into five functions: Identify, Protect, Detect, Respond, and Recover.

Bindy's NIST CSF Status: ⚠️ Partial Compliance (60% complete)

✅ Identify: 90% complete
✅ Protect: 80% complete
⚠️ Detect: 60% complete (needs network monitoring)
✅ Respond: 90% complete
⚠️ Recover: 50% complete (needs disaster recovery testing)

NIST CSF Core Functions¶

1. Identify (ID)¶

Objective: Develop organizational understanding to manage cybersecurity risk to systems, people, assets, data, and capabilities.

Category	Subcategory	Bindy Implementation	Status
ID.AM (Asset Management)	Asset inventory	Kubernetes resources tracked in Git	✅ Complete
ID.BE (Business Environment)	Dependencies documented	Third-party dependencies in SBOM	✅ Complete
ID.GV (Governance)	Security policies established	SECURITY.md, threat model, incident response	✅ Complete
ID.RA (Risk Assessment)	Threat modeling conducted	STRIDE analysis (15 threats, 5 scenarios)	✅ Complete
ID.RM (Risk Management Strategy)	Risk mitigation roadmap	Compliance roadmap (H-1 to M-4)	✅ Complete
ID.SC (Supply Chain Risk Management)	Third-party dependencies assessed	Daily `cargo audit`, Trivy scanning, SBOM	✅ Complete

Evidence: - Threat Model - STRIDE threat analysis - Security Architecture - Asset inventory, trust boundaries - Compliance Roadmap - Risk mitigation tracking - Cargo.toml, Cargo.lock, SBOM - Dependency inventory

Identify Function: ✅ 90% Complete (Asset management, risk assessment done; needs supply chain deep dive)

2. Protect (PR)¶

Objective: Develop and implement appropriate safeguards to ensure delivery of critical services.

Category	Subcategory	Bindy Implementation	Status
PR.AC (Identity Management)	Least privilege access	RBAC (minimal delete permissions for lifecycle management), 2FA	✅ Complete
PR.AC (Physical access control)	N/A (cloud-hosted)	Kubernetes cluster security	N/A
PR.AT (Awareness and Training)	Security training	CONTRIBUTING.md (secure coding guidelines)	✅ Complete
PR.DS (Data Security)	Data at rest encryption	Kubernetes Secrets (encrypted etcd), S3 SSE	✅ Complete
PR.DS (Data in transit encryption)	TLS for all API calls	Kubernetes API (TLS 1.3), S3 (TLS 1.3)	✅ Complete
PR.IP (Information Protection)	Secret management	Kubernetes Secrets, secret access audit trail	✅ Complete
PR.MA (Maintenance)	Vulnerability patching	Daily `cargo audit`, SLAs (CRITICAL 24h, HIGH 7d)	✅ Complete
PR.PT (Protective Technology)	Security controls	Non-root containers, read-only filesystem, RBAC	✅ Complete

Evidence: - RBAC policy: deploy/rbac/clusterrole.yaml - Secret Access Audit Trail - Vulnerability Management Policy - Kubernetes Security Context: deploy/operator/deployment.yaml (non-root, read-only FS)

Protect Function: ✅ 80% Complete (Strong access controls, data protection; needs NetworkPolicies L-1)

3. Detect (DE)¶

Objective: Develop and implement appropriate activities to identify the occurrence of a cybersecurity event.

Category	Subcategory	Bindy Implementation	Status
DE.AE (Anomalies and Events)	Anomaly detection	Prometheus alerts (unauthorized access, excessive access)	✅ Complete
DE.CM (Security Continuous Monitoring)	Vulnerability scanning	Daily `cargo audit`, Trivy (containers)	✅ Complete
DE.CM (Network monitoring)	Network traffic analysis	⚠️ Planned (L-1: NetworkPolicies + monitoring)	⚠️ Planned
DE.DP (Detection Processes)	Incident detection procedures	7 incident playbooks (P1-P7)	✅ Complete

Implemented Detection Controls:

Alert	Trigger	Severity	Response Time
UnauthorizedSecretAccess	Non-operator accessed secret	CRITICAL	< 1 minute
ExcessiveSecretAccess	> 10 secret accesses/sec	WARNING	< 5 minutes
FailedSecretAccessAttempts	> 1 failed access/sec	WARNING	< 5 minutes
CriticalVulnerability	CVSS 9.0-10.0 detected	CRITICAL	< 15 minutes
PodCrashLoop	Pod restarting repeatedly	HIGH	< 5 minutes

Evidence: - Prometheus alerting rules: deploy/monitoring/alerts/bindy-secret-access.yaml - Secret Access Audit Trail - Alert definitions - GitHub Actions workflows: Daily security scans

Detect Function: ⚠️ 60% Complete (Anomaly detection done; needs network monitoring L-1)

4. Respond (RE)¶

Objective: Develop and implement appropriate activities to take action regarding a detected cybersecurity incident.

Category	Subcategory	Bindy Implementation	Status
RE.RP (Response Planning)	Incident response plan	7 incident playbooks (P1-P7) following NIST lifecycle	✅ Complete
RE.CO (Communications)	Incident communication plan	Slack war rooms, status page, regulatory reporting	✅ Complete
RE.AN (Analysis)	Incident analysis procedures	Root cause analysis, forensic preservation	✅ Complete
RE.MI (Mitigation)	Incident containment procedures	Isolation, credential rotation, rollback	✅ Complete
RE.IM (Improvements)	Post-incident improvements	Post-mortem template, action items tracking	✅ Complete

Incident Response Playbooks (NIST Lifecycle):

Playbook	NIST Phases Covered	Response Time	Evidence
P1: Critical Vulnerability	Preparation, Detection, Containment, Eradication, Recovery	< 15 min	P1 Playbook
P2: Compromised Operator	All phases	< 15 min	P2 Playbook
P3: DNS Service Outage	Detection, Containment, Recovery	< 15 min	P3 Playbook
P4: RNDC Key Compromise	All phases	< 15 min	P4 Playbook
P5: Unauthorized DNS Changes	All phases	< 1 hour	P5 Playbook
P6: DDoS Attack	Detection, Containment, Recovery	< 15 min	P6 Playbook
P7: Supply Chain Compromise	All phases	< 15 min	P7 Playbook

NIST Incident Response Lifecycle:

Preparation ✅ - Playbooks documented, tools configured, team trained
Detection & Analysis ✅ - Prometheus alerts, audit log analysis
Containment, Eradication & Recovery ✅ - Isolation procedures, patching, service restoration
Post-Incident Activity ✅ - Post-mortem template, lessons learned, action items

Evidence: - Incident Response Playbooks - Post-incident review template (in playbooks) - Semi-annual tabletop exercise reports

Respond Function: ✅ 90% Complete (Comprehensive playbooks; needs annual tabletop exercise)

5. Recover (RE)¶

Objective: Develop and implement appropriate activities to maintain plans for resilience and to restore capabilities or services impaired due to a cybersecurity incident.

Category	Subcategory	Bindy Implementation	Status
RC.RP (Recovery Planning)	Disaster recovery plan	Multi-region deployment (planned), zone backups	⚠️ Planned
RC.IM (Improvements)	Recovery plan testing	⚠️ Annual DR drill needed	⚠️ Planned
RC.CO (Communications)	Recovery communication plan	Incident playbooks include recovery steps	✅ Complete

Current Recovery Capabilities:

Capability	RTO (Recovery Time Objective)	RPO (Recovery Point Objective)	Status
Pod Failure	0 (automatic restart)	0 (no data loss)	✅ Complete
Operator Failure	< 5 minutes (new pod scheduled)	0 (no data loss)	✅ Complete
BIND9 Pod Failure	< 5 minutes (new pod scheduled)	0 (zone data in etcd)	✅ Complete
Zone Data Loss	< 1 hour (restore from Git)	< 5 minutes (last reconciliation)	✅ Complete
Cluster Failure	⚠️ < 4 hours (manual failover)	< 1 hour (last etcd backup)	⚠️ Needs testing
Region Failure	⚠️ < 24 hours (multi-region planned)	< 1 hour	⚠️ Planned

Planned Improvements:

L-2: Implement multi-region deployment (RTO < 1 hour for region failure)
Annual DR Drill: Test disaster recovery procedures (cluster failure, region failure)

Evidence: - High availability architecture: 3+ pod replicas, multi-zone - Zone backups: Git repository (all DNSZone CRDs) - Incident playbooks: P3 (DNS Service Outage) includes recovery steps

Recover Function: ⚠️ 50% Complete (Pod/operator recovery done; needs multi-region and DR testing)

NIST CSF Implementation Tiers¶

NIST CSF defines 4 implementation tiers (Partial, Risk Informed, Repeatable, Adaptive). Bindy is at Tier 3: Repeatable.

Tier	Description	Bindy Status
Tier 1: Partial	Ad hoc, reactive risk management	❌
Tier 2: Risk Informed	Risk management practices approved but not policy	❌
Tier 3: Repeatable	Formally approved policies, regularly updated	✅ Current
Tier 4: Adaptive	Continuous improvement based on lessons learned	⚠️ Target

Tier 3 Evidence: - Formal security policies documented and published - Incident response playbooks (repeatable processes) - Quarterly compliance reviews - Annual policy reviews (Next Review: 2026-03-18)

Tier 4 Roadmap: - Implement continuous security metrics dashboard - Quarterly threat intelligence updates to policies - Annual penetration testing with policy updates - Automated compliance reporting

NIST CSF Compliance Summary¶

Function	Completion	Priority Gaps	Target Date
Identify	90%	Supply chain deep dive	Q1 2026
Protect	80%	NetworkPolicies (L-1)	Q1 2026
Detect	60%	Network monitoring (L-1)	Q1 2026
Respond	90%	Annual tabletop exercise	Q2 2026
Recover	50%	Multi-region deployment (L-2), DR testing	Q2 2026

Overall NIST CSF Maturity: ⚠️ 60% (Tier 3: Repeatable)

Target: 90% (Tier 4: Adaptive) by Q2 2026

NIST CSF Audit Evidence¶

For NIST CSF assessments, provide:

Identify Function:
Asset inventory (Kubernetes resources in Git)
Threat model (STRIDE analysis)
Compliance roadmap (risk mitigation tracking)
SBOM (dependency inventory)
Protect Function:
RBAC policy and verification output
Kubernetes Security Context (non-root, read-only FS)
Vulnerability management policy (SLAs, remediation tracking)
Secret access audit trail
Detect Function:
Prometheus alerting rules
Vulnerability scan results (daily cargo audit, Trivy)
Incident detection playbooks
Respond Function:
7 incident response playbooks (P1-P7)
Post-incident review template
Tabletop exercise results (semi-annual)
Recover Function:
High availability architecture (3+ replicas, multi-zone)
Zone backup procedures (Git repository)
Disaster recovery plan (in progress)