Discussion:

Organizational personnel with information security responsibilities (e.g., system administrators, system security officers, system security managers, and systems security engineers) conduct security impact analyses. Individuals conducting security impact analyses possess the necessary skills and technical expertise to analyze the changes to systems and the associated security ramifications. Security impact analysis may include reviewing security plans to understand security requirements and reviewing system design documentation to understand the implementation of controls and how specific changes might affect the controls. Security impact analyses may also include risk assessments to better understand the impact of the changes and to determine if additional controls are required.

This publication is available free of charge from: https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.SP.800-171r2

[SP 800-128] provides guidance on configuration change control and security impact analysis.

Upon assessment, assessors must determine if-

…the security impact of changes to the system is analyzed prior to
implementation.

Assessors are instructed to-

Examine: [SELECT FROM: Configuration management policy; procedures addressing security impact analysis for system changes; configuration management plan; security impact analysis documentation; system security plan; analysis tools and associated outputs; change control records; system audit logs and records; other relevant documents or records].

Interview: [SELECT FROM: Personnel with responsibility for conducting security impact analysis; personnel with information security responsibilities; system or network administrators].

Test: [SELECT FROM: Organizational processes for security impact analysis].