Solicit and receive security alerts, advisories, and directives from reputable external organizations. Identify sources relevant to the industry and technology used by your company. Methods to receive alerts and advisories may include:

• signing up for email distributions;
• subscribing to RSS feeds; and
• attending meetings.

Review alerts and advisories for applicability as they are received. The frequency of the reviews should be based on the frequency of the alerts and advisories to ensure you have the most up-to-date information.

External alerts and advisories may prompt you to generate internal security alerts, advisories, or directives, and share these with all personnel with a need-to-know. The individuals should assess the risk related to a given alert and act to respond as appropriate. Sometimes it may require a configuration update. Other times, the information may also require adjusting system architecture in order to thwart a threat described in an advisory.

Example

You monitor security advisories each week. You review the alert emails and online subscription service alerts to determine which ones apply [b]. You create a list of the applicable alerts and research what steps you need to take to address them. Next, you generate a plan that you review with your change management group so that the work can be scheduled [c].

Potential Assessment Considerations

• Are the responses to system security alerts and advisories identified in relation to the assessed severity of potential flaws (e.g., communicating with responsible personnel, initiating vulnerability scans, initiating system flaw remediation activities) [a]?
• Are system security alerts and advisories addressed (e.g., assessing potential severity or likelihood, communicating with responsible personnel, initiating vulnerability scans, initiating system flaw remediation activities) [a,c]?