- Identify each place cryptography protects CUI confidentiality, then check the module — not just the product — against the CMVP validated-modules list.
- Enable FIPS mode where products offer it and record the certificate numbers; assessors ask for them.
- Watch validation status over time: certificates lapse to historical status, and a vendor marketing claim of FIPS alignment is not the same thing as a module on the CMVP validated list.
3.13.11OFFICIAL STATEMENT BELOWDERIVED REQUIREMENTPENDING NIST SME REVIEW
3.13.11 — FIPS-validated cryptography
3.13 System and Communications Protection · NIST SP 800-171 Rev. 2 · The heading label is this site's navigational shorthand; the official language is the statement below.
Official requirement statement (verbatim)
Employ FIPS-validated cryptography when used to protect the confidentiality of CUI.
NIST SP 800-171 Rev. 2 — Protecting CUI in Nonfederal Systems ↗NIST SP 800-171A — Assessing Security Requirements for CUI ↗Independent interpretation
What this requirement is after
Where cryptography is what protects CUI confidentiality, the cryptographic modules must be FIPS-validated — an approved algorithm in an unvalidated module does not clear the bar. This is a procurement-and-configuration requirement wearing a cryptography costume.
Mapped practices
Brilliant at the Basics practices that support this requirement
No practice maps to this requirement — deliberately.
The campaign’s twenty practices are a priority list, not a control catalog, and none of them works this requirement’s substance directly. It still applies to you if it is in your contract’s scope: address it through your own implementation and the related artifacts below, and treat the absence of a mapping here as honesty, not permission to skip it.
Doing the work
Implementation considerations and evidence
- A table mapping each CUI-protecting cryptographic use to a CMVP certificate number
- Configuration showing FIPS mode enabled where applicable
Artifacts
Templates and worksheets with a mapped relationship
No artifact in the library names this requirement yet. The library index groups everything by category and practice.
The other revision
Where this lands in Rev. 3
Provenance
Sources and review status
| Primary sources | NIST SP 800-171 Rev. 2 — Protecting CUI in Nonfederal Systems · NIST SP 800-171A — Assessing Security Requirements for CUI |
|---|---|
| Review status | Pending NIST SME review |
| Content version | 1.0 |
| Updated |