- Enforce technically where possible: endpoint policy blocking or allow-listing removable storage does more than a written prohibition.
- Decide the OT position deliberately — plants often depend on USB media for updates to isolated equipment, and a controlled, scanned, owned-media procedure beats an ignored ban.
- Issue owned, marked media for legitimate needs so the ownerless-media prohibition is livable.
03.08.07OFFICIAL TITLEPENDING NIST SME REVIEW
03.08.07 — Media Use
03.08 Media Protection · NIST SP 800-171 Rev. 3
Independent summary of the official requirement
Requires restricting or prohibiting the use of organization-defined types of system media on organization-defined systems or components, and prohibiting the use of removable system media without an identifiable owner.
Rev. 3 requirement text is multi-part and parameterized with organization-defined values, so this site summarizes rather than reproduces it. The summary is independent — read the official publication for the binding wording.
NIST SP 800-171 Rev. 3 — Protecting CUI in Nonfederal Systems ↗NIST SP 800-171A Rev. 3 — Assessing Security Requirements for CUI ↗Independent interpretation
What this requirement is after
The organization decides which removable media are allowed where — and 'found in the parking lot' is never allowed. Technical restrictions on removable storage plus the ownership rule close one of the oldest malware-delivery and exfiltration paths there is.
Across revisions
Merges Rev. 2's removable-media control (3.8.7) and the ownerless portable-storage prohibition (3.8.8), with the restricted media types and target systems now organization-defined parameters.
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
- Endpoint removable-media policy exports
- The issued-media register establishing ownership
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 came from in Rev. 2
Provenance
Sources and review status
| Primary sources | NIST SP 800-171 Rev. 3 — Protecting CUI in Nonfederal Systems · NIST SP 800-171A Rev. 3 — Assessing Security Requirements for CUI |
|---|---|
| Review status | Pending NIST SME review |
| Content version | 1.0 |
| Updated |