NIST 800-53 REV 5 • PLANNING
PL-11 — Baseline Tailoring
Tailor the selected control baseline by applying specified tailoring actions.
Supplemental Guidance
The concept of tailoring allows organizations to specialize or customize a set of baseline controls by applying a defined set of tailoring actions. Tailoring actions facilitate such specialization and customization by allowing organizations to develop security and privacy plans that reflect their specific mission and business functions, the environments where their systems operate, the threats and vulnerabilities that can affect their systems, and any other conditions or situations that can impact their mission or business success. Tailoring guidance is provided in [SP 800-53B](#46d9e201-840e-440e-987c-2c773333c752) . Tailoring a control baseline is accomplished by identifying and designating common controls, applying scoping considerations, selecting compensating controls, assigning values to control parameters, supplementing the control baseline with additional controls as needed, and providing information for control implementation. The general tailoring actions in [SP 800-53B](#46d9e201-840e-440e-987c-2c773333c752) can be supplemented with additional actions based on the needs of organizations. Tailoring actions can be applied to the baselines in [SP 800-53B](#46d9e201-840e-440e-987c-2c773333c752) in accordance with the security and privacy requirements from [FISMA](#0c67b2a9-bede-43d2-b86d-5f35b8be36e9), [PRIVACT](#18e71fec-c6fd-475a-925a-5d8495cf8455) , and [OMB A-130](#27847491-5ce1-4f6a-a1e4-9e483782f0ef) . Alternatively, other communities of interest adopting different control baselines can apply the tailoring actions in [SP 800-53B](#46d9e201-840e-440e-987c-2c773333c752) to specialize or customize the controls that represent the specific needs and concerns of those entities.
Practitioner Notes
After selecting a control baseline, you tailor it — adjusting controls to fit your specific system and operational environment. Not every control applies equally to every system, and tailoring lets you add, remove, or modify controls appropriately.
Example 1: Review each control in your selected baseline and determine if it applies to your system as-is, needs modification, or does not apply (with justification). For example, if your system has no wireless capability, you can mark wireless-related controls as not applicable with documented rationale.
Example 2: Document your tailoring decisions in your SSP. For each tailored control, explain what was changed and why. Common tailoring actions include applying scoping guidance (not applicable), compensating controls (using an alternative control to achieve the same objective), and organization-defined parameters (setting specific values like password length or audit retention period).