TAC and the FBI CJIS Security Policy
How TAC delivers the access control, advanced authentication, and audit requirements of the FBI CJIS Security Policy v6.0 — for the agencies and contractors that access Criminal Justice Information.
Note: The FBI CJIS Security Policy v6.0 organizes requirements into 20 policy areas mapped to NIST 800-53 controls. This guide describes how TAC delivers the technical controls in the policy areas concerned with electronic access to Criminal Justice Information (CJI) — Access Control, Identification & Authentication, and Audit & Accountability. Full CJIS compliance requires an end-to-end program including personnel screening, security awareness training, physical and environmental protection, media protection, incident response, and formal governance — activities outside the scope of any access control platform. TAC addresses the electronic access, authentication, and audit layer; not the personnel, physical, training, or program-governance layers.
Access control is at the heart of CJIS
The CJIS Security Policy exists to protect Criminal Justice Information — biometrics, case records, and identifiable data about individuals — from unauthorized access. Several of its most heavily audited policy areas are, at their core, access control problems: who can reach CJI, how they prove their identity, and whether every access is logged.
Advanced authentication — multi-factor authentication for privileged and non-privileged accounts — became mandatory and subject to FBI audit as of October 1, 2024. Version 6.0 reinforces stronger identity proofing, MFA, account lifecycle management, rapid account disabling, and expanded audit and evidence expectations. Because v6.0 is mapped to NIST 800-53, agencies already aligned with NIST or FedRAMP are well positioned — and so is any access platform built on those same controls.
TAC is built for exactly this layer. It authenticates every user with MFA, enforces least-privilege access to CJI-bearing systems, validates device posture, and logs every access event with full attribution — whether those systems run on-premises, in the cloud, or hybrid. The CJIS Security Policy is architecture-independent, and so is TAC.
Where TAC Delivers Primary Coverage
TAC delivers the technical controls behind the CJIS policy areas governing electronic access to CJI.
Access Control — Primary Coverage
| CJIS Requirement | How TAC Delivers |
|---|---|
| Account management | Access to CJI-bearing systems is governed through the agency’s identity source, which TAC consumes. Individual accountability is enforced — every session ties to a verified individual identity. No shared accounts are required. |
| Least privilege & access enforcement | Per-user, per-application policy is enforced at the proxy on every request. Users reach only the CJI systems their role authorizes — nothing else is visible or reachable. |
| Rapid account disabling | Disabling a user at the identity source immediately revokes their TAC sessions and blocks future access to all CJI systems at once — meeting v6.0’s emphasis on rapid account disabling when risk is detected. |
| Remote & mobile access control | Remote and mobile access to CJI is brokered through TAC on a single encrypted port, with device posture validated before access is granted. No open inbound ports to CJI systems remain. |
Identification & Authentication — Primary Coverage
| CJIS Requirement | How TAC Delivers |
|---|---|
| Advanced authentication (MFA) | MFA is enforced on every session for both privileged and non-privileged accounts. All seven methods are included in the base licence: FIDO2/WebAuthn, SafeLogin, TOTP, push, SMS, OTP, and hardware tokens, plus Duo, RSA, and biometric integration — satisfying the advanced authentication mandate auditable since October 1, 2024. |
| Unique identification | Every user and entity is uniquely identified and authenticated before reaching CJI. TAC federates with the agency’s Active Directory, LDAP, SAML, OIDC, or other identity source. |
| Authenticator management | TAC enforces MFA regardless of upstream password strength. Authenticator lifecycle remains in the agency’s identity source of truth; TAC issues session-scoped tokens with no portability outside the proxy. |
| Device posture before access | TAC validates device posture — certificate, OS, patch level, encryption, and more — before granting access to CJI systems, and continuously throughout the session. |
Audit & Accountability — Primary Coverage
| CJIS Requirement | How TAC Delivers |
|---|---|
| Event logging | Every authentication, authorization decision, session establishment, and policy event involving CJI access is logged with full attribution — who accessed what, when, from which device, under what policy. |
| Audit record content & time stamps | Logs capture the identity, source, target system, action, and time-stamped result of every access event, meeting v6.0’s expanded content-of-audit-records requirements. |
| SIEM export & retention | TAC logs export to SIEM for the retention, review, analysis, and reporting CJIS requires. The agency demonstrates — not just asserts — that CJI access controls are operating, with TAC providing the access evidence. |
Configuration & System Communications — Supporting Coverage
| CJIS Requirement | How TAC Delivers |
|---|---|
| Encryption in transit | All access to CJI through TAC is encrypted (TLS 1.2 or TLS 1.3 with FIPS 140-2 compliant cryptographic modules), meeting CJIS encryption-in-transit requirements for CJI. |
| Boundary protection | TAC’s single-port reverse proxy is the controlled boundary in front of CJI systems. All other inbound ports close, reducing the attack surface CJIS configuration controls aim to minimize. |
Personnel, physical, training, media, incident response & governance policy areas
The CJIS Security Policy includes policy areas TAC does not address: personnel security and screening, security awareness training, physical and environmental protection, media protection and sanitization, the formal incident response program, mobile device management beyond access enforcement, and the overarching governance, risk-management, and audit-readiness program v6.0 emphasizes. These are personnel, physical, procedural, and organizational activities outside the scope of an access control platform. TAC produces audit evidence (access logs, authentication records, revocation timelines) that supports the recordkeeping and accountability expectations across several of these areas, but it does not perform the personnel, physical, training, or program-governance functions themselves.
Built on NIST 800-53 — the same foundation you already align to
CJIS Security Policy v6.0 is mapped to NIST 800-53, and the FBI explicitly notes that agencies already aligned with NIST or FedRAMP are positioned to meet CJIS faster. TAC is built on those same controls. The access enforcement, MFA, device posture, and audit logging that satisfy CJIS Access Control, Identification & Authentication, and Audit & Accountability policy areas are the same capabilities TAC brings to NIST 800-53 and FedRAMP alignment.
For an agency or contractor handling CJI, this means the access evidence is shared across frameworks. The audit log that demonstrates CJIS event logging is the same one that supports NIST AU controls. The MFA enforcement that satisfies CJIS advanced authentication is the same that satisfies NIST IA controls. You are not building a separate access-control program for CJIS — you are applying one platform to all of them.
See the companion TAC and NIST Alignment Guide and TAC and FedRAMP Guide for the underlying 800-53 mappings.
Preparing for a CJIS Audit?
Our team can map your CJI access architecture against the CJIS Security Policy v6.0 and show how TAC delivers the access control, advanced authentication, and audit evidence the FBI requires.
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