Topic

System administration processes and procedures

Applicable to

all

History

Priority

must

Mar 2022

System administrators document requirements for administrative activities, consider potential security impacts, obtain any necessary approvals, notify users of any disruptions or outages, and maintain system and security documentation.

Due to significant overlap, previous change management recommendations are now captured under system administration processes and procedures.

Dec 2021

Change management processes, and supporting change management procedures, are developed and implemented covering: • identification and documentation of requests for change • approval required for changes to be made • assessment of potential security impacts • notification of any planned disruptions or outages • implementation and testing of approved changes • the maintenance of system and security documentation.

Miscellaneous changes were made to rationale and security controls throughout the publication. This included:

• A review from the Using the Information Security Manual chapter through to the Guidelines for Media chapter.

• Security controls suitable for all audiences have been identified with the ‘All’ applicability marking while additional security controls suitable for just government audiences have been identified with the O, P, S and TS applicability markings.

• Security controls suitable for specific classifications have been amended to include their classification(s) in the wording of the security controls to reduce the reliance on applicability markings to confer suitability.

• Tables in security controls have been converted into prose to allow for inclusion in the SSP annex template and the XML list of security controls.

• The use of ‘official’ and ‘highly classified’ terminology has been replaced with specific classifications to remove ambiguity.

• Security controls relating to high assurance ICT equipment have had their applicability narrowed to ‘S, TS’ reflecting that they are intended for the protection of SECRET and TOP SECRET systems and data.

Jul 2020

A change management process, and supporting change management procedures, is developed and implemented covering: • identification and documentation of requests for change • approval required for changes to be made • assessment of potential security impacts • notification of any planned disruptions or outages • implementation and testing of approved changes • the maintenance of system and security documentation.

Security control 1211 was amended to capture the assessment of potential security impacts and notification of any disruptions or outages as part of change management processes.

Jun 2020

A change management process, and supporting change management procedures, is developed and implemented covering: • identification and documentation of requests for change • approval required for changes to be made • implementation and testing of approved changes • the maintenance of system and security documentation.

Aug 2019

A change management process, and supporting change management procedures, is developed and implemented covering: § identification and documentation of requests for change § approval required for changes to be made § implementation and testing of approved changes § the maintenance of system and security documentation.

Security controls 1211 was modified to include content from security control 0115.

Jul 2019

A change management process is developed and implemented that includes: § identification and documentation of changes to be made § approval required for changes to be made § implementation and testing of approved changes § any actions to be taken before and after approved changes are made.

2015

Agencies must have a formal change management process in place.