A brief history of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and its purpose
NIST is one of the most advanced institutes in world in its fields of operation. It creates and sets standards in line with its mission.
It was founded in 1901 by the U.S. Congress and meant to establish an authoritative domestic measurement and standards laboratory.
NIST is organized in several laboratories and programs like the below:
- Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology (CNST)
- Communications Technology Laboratory (CTL)
- Engineering Laboratory (EL)
- Information Technology Laboratory (ITL)
- Material Measurement Laboratory (MML)
- NIST Center for Neutron Research (NCNR)
- Physical Measurement Laboratory (PML)
- Baldrige Performance Excellence Program
- Hollings Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP)
- NIST Advanced Manufacturing Office
Why we have NIST in our blog?
Well that’s simple, because NIST is responsible for developing information security standards and guidelines.
We will go through new and old publications so to identify good practices and find real life usage and scenarios that can benefit all of us.
This blog is intended for computer security incident response teams (CSIRTs), system and network administrators, security staff, privacy officers, technical support staff, chief information security officers (CISOs), chief information officers (CIOs), as well as for people who are not into the InfoSec field but have a natural interest for the matter.
All the professionals mentioned above could work in diverse fields, ranging from Information technology, Health, Telecommunications, Automotive Research and Development, Pharmaceutics and much more. What we are blogging here is how these standards can provide value and enable a safe environment for the future.
We want the world to be as nice as it can be, but threats can materialize anywhere and anytime, so lets prepare and share the best we can with other people.
Personally I have found NIST publications to be of a very good value and applicability, thus the reason I’m writing about them.
