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NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 · AC-3

Access Enforcement

US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) · cited in 790 of our lessons

Explanation

What it asks for. Systems must enforce approved authorisations for logical access to information and resources, in line with the applicable access control policies.

In practice. This is the technical layer that makes access decisions real: permissions in directories, file systems, databases, applications and cloud platforms that match what was approved. Good implementations use central, role or attribute-based models and avoid hard-coded or ad hoc permissions. Evidence includes access control configuration, test results showing users cannot reach data outside their role, and alignment between approved access requests and actual permissions.

Common gaps. Organisations often approve access in one place but configure it elsewhere, so what is enforced drifts from what was approved. Broken access control in custom web applications, a leading OWASP Top 10 category, is a frequent and serious gap.

Open SP 800-53 at NIST
The official text
Enforce approved authorizations for logical access to information and system resources in accordance with applicable access control policies. Discussion: Access control policies control access between active entities or subjects (i.e., users or processes acting on behalf of users) and passive entities or objects (i.e., devices, files, records, domains) in organizational systems. In addition to enforcing authorized access at the system level and recognizing that systems can host many applications and services in support of mission and business functions, access enforcement mechanisms can also be employed at the application and service level to provide increased information security and privacy. In contrast to logical access controls that are implemented within the system, physical access controls are addressed by the controls in the Physical and Environmental Protection ( [PE](#pe) ) family.

From NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5, a work of the US government in the public domain.

Lessons that cite it

Real incidents where this item mattered: the latest 12 of 790.