Security Alerts, Advisories, and Directives is the requirement that keeps your organization plugged into the outside world's threat intelligence and then pushes that information to the people inside who need it. It is part of the System and Information Integrity (03.14) family. Security Alerts, Advisories, and Directives (03.14.03) has two (2) parts: receive system security alerts, advisories, and directives from external organizations on an ongoing basis, and generate and disseminate internal system security alerts, advisories, and directives as necessary. Per the NIST discussion, the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), the National Security Agency (NSA), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) generate security alerts and advisories, and software vendors, subscription services, and industry Information Sharing and Analysis Centers (ISACs) may also provide them.
A common difficulty with this requirement is subscribing to external feeds and stopping there. R3 adds an internal half to this requirement: generating and disseminating your own alerts, advisories, and directives to the people who need to act. That internal half is the new work, and it is two of the three (3) assessment objectives. Alerts that land in one person's inbox and go no further leave those objectives open.
Where things stand for companies facing the transition from NIST 800-171 R2 to R3:
The following is reproduced verbatim from NIST 800-171 R3, requirement 03.14.03 Security Alerts, Advisories, and Directives. Only the formatting has been adjusted for readability. This requirement has two (2) lettered parts:
The source control is SI-05 from NIST 800-53. There are no Organization-Defined Parameters (ODPs). Per the NIST discussion, compliance with security directives is essential due to the critical nature of many of these directives and the potential immediate adverse effects on organizational operations and assets, individuals, other organizations, and the Nation should the directives not be implemented in a timely manner. You can read the requirement directly at NIST 800-171 R3, 03.14.03 (p. 65).
None (0). Requirement 03.14.03 contains no bracketed assignment, so there is no organization-defined value to select and nothing for the DoD to specify. The requirement applies as written.
Your System Security Plan (SSP) narrative for 03.14.03 therefore records how the requirement is implemented rather than a parameter you chose.
NIST 800-171A R3 breaks 03.14.03 into three (3) determination statements, and it has no Organization-Defined Parameters (ODPs). These AOs are:
Generating (b[01]) and disseminating (b[02]) are separate objectives, so producing an internal advisory that never reaches anyone satisfies only half of part b. The full guidance on assessment methods and objects, is in NIST 800-171A R3, 03.14.03 (p. 86).
Examine: system and information integrity policy and procedures; procedures for security alerts, advisories, and directives; records of security alerts and advisories; system security plan.
Interview: personnel with security alert and advisory responsibilities; personnel implementing, operating, maintaining, and using the system; personnel, organizational elements, or external organizations to whom alerts, advisories, and directives are to be disseminated; personnel with information security responsibilities; system administrators.
Test: processes for defining, receiving, generating, disseminating, and complying with security alerts, advisories, and directives; mechanisms for supporting or implementing security directives; mechanisms for supporting or implementing the definition, receipt, generation, and dissemination of security alerts, advisories, and directives.
03.14.03 maps from NIST 800-171 R2 requirement 3.14.3 (monitor system security alerts and advisories and take action in response):
Mapped against the three (3) AOs, one (1) is direct (minimal effort) and two (2) have no clear mapping (significant effort). Receiving external alerts carries forward. The internal generation and dissemination objectives are the new work, and they account for two of the three (3) objectives. Note also that the R2 objectives covering identifying and taking response actions (3.14.3[a] and 3.14.3[c]) do not carry into this R3 requirement, which reflects R3 handling response through Risk Response (03.11.04) and the incident response family instead.
Source Control in NIST 800-53 R5:
Secure Controls Framework (SCF) Crosswalk
Organizations running a single control set across multiple frameworks can satisfy 03.14.03 through the following SCF controls:
The crosswalks from NIST 800-171 R3 and NIST 800-171A R3 to the SCF are available at no cost through the SCF Set Theory Relationship Mapping (STRM): https://securecontrolsframework.com/start-here/set-theory-relationship-mapping-strm. The STRM also carries the relationship type for each mapping (Equal, Subset Of, Intersects With), which tells you whether an SCF control fully satisfies the requirement or only part of it. Mapping above taken from SCF 2026.3.
The following are issues teams may encounter rather than certainties. They are about the internal half of the requirement, each of which needs documented evidence of due diligence and due care such as policies, standards, procedures, and configuration screenshots:
Reasonable objective evidence for an assessment is often subjective. The following examples of evidence to address NIST 800-171 R3 03.14.03 are sourced from the SCF Evidence Request List (ERL), available at https://securecontrolsframework.com/free-content/scf-download. These ERL artifacts are mapped to NIST 800-171 R3 03.14.03 through SCF controls. They establish a starting point for discussions on what an organization needs to have for evidence of due diligence and due care to withstand external scrutiny by an assessor or regulator.
Alongside these, keep the System Security Plan (SSP) narrative for 03.14.03.
With one AO mapping directly and two with no clear mapping, 03.14.03 is a moderate lift concentrated on the internal process. A realistic sequence:
How many assessment objectives does NIST 800-171 R3 03.14.03 have? NIST 800-171A R3 breaks 03.14.03 into three (3) assessment objectives. An assessor works through each one separately, so each needs its own evidence.
Which NIST 800-53 R5 control does NIST 800-171 R3 03.14.03 come from? SI-05.
How many Organization-Defined Parameters (ODPs) does NIST 800-171 R3 03.14.03 have? None (0). The requirement contains no bracketed assignment, so there is no organization-defined value and nothing for the DoD to specify.
Where does NIST 800-171 R3 03.14.03 sit in the NIST 800-171 R3 Kill Chain? Phase 11, Situational Awareness (SA). The Kill Chain is a phased model for sequencing R3 implementation, and it assigns this requirement to that phase.
03.14.03 Security Alerts, Advisories, and Directives receives security alerts, advisories, and directives from external organizations on an ongoing basis and generates and disseminates internal ones as necessary. It maps from R2 3.14.3 with external receipt transitioning directly, while internal generation and dissemination are new work covering two of the three (3) objectives. The recurring problem is subscribing to feeds and calling it done. Document your sources, build a process to turn external intelligence into internal alerts, get those alerts to the people who act on them, and connect the results to remediation.
Authoritative sources:
Authoritative sources:
This guide reproduces U.S. Government text from NIST 800-171 R3 and NIST 800-171A R3. It is educational, not legal or assessment advice. Last reviewed: 2026-09-22.
