The purpose of this publication is to provide guidelines for selecting and specifying security controls for information systems supporting the executive agencies of the federal government. The guidelines have been developed to help achieve more secure information systems within the federal government by: (i) facilitating a more consistent, comparable, and repeatable approach for selecting and specifying security controls for information systems; (ii) providing a recommendation for minimum security controls for information systems categorized in accordance with Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) 199, Standards for Security Categorization of Federal Information and Information Systems; (iii) promoting a dynamic, extensible catalog of security controls for information systems to meet the demands of changing requirements and technologies; and (iv) creating a foundation for the development of assessment methods and procedures for determining security control effectiveness. The guidelines provided in this special publication are applicable to all federal information systems other than those systems designated as national security systems as defined in 44 U.S.C., Section 3542. The guidelines have been broadly developed from a technical perspective to complement similar guidelines for national security systems. This publication is intended to provide guidance to federal agencies until the publication of FIPS 200, Minimum Security Controls for Federal Information Systems