NIST-MA-5(2) Security Clearances for Classified Systems

Verify that personnel performing maintenance and diagnostic activities on a system processing, storing, or transmitting classified information possess security clearances and formal access approvals for at least the highest classification level and for compartments of information on the system.

Personnel who conduct maintenance on organizational systems may be exposed to classified information during the course of their maintenance activities. To mitigate the inherent risk of such exposure, organizations use maintenance personnel that are cleared (i.e., possess security clearances) to the classification level of the information stored on the system.