PE-12 Emergency Lighting (L) (M) (H)

NIST 800-53 (r4) Control

The organization employs and maintains automatic emergency lighting for the information system that activates in the event of a power outage or disruption and that covers emergency exits and evacuation routes within the facility.

NIST 800-53 (r4) Supplemental Guidance

This control applies primarily to facilities containing concentrations of information system resources including, for example, data centers, server rooms, and mainframe computer rooms. Related controls: CP-2, CP-7.

NIST 800-53 (r5) Discussion

The provision of emergency lighting applies primarily to organizational facilities that contain concentrations of system resources, including data centers, server rooms, and mainframe computer rooms. Emergency lighting provisions for the system are described in the contingency plan for the organization. If emergency lighting for the system fails or cannot be provided, organizations consider alternate processing sites for power-related contingencies.

38North Guidance:

Meets Minimum Requirement:

• Document / diagram emergency exits and evacuation routes.

• Install emergency lighting, or designate a subset of existing lighting as emergency lighting that will function in the event of our power outage.

• Emergency lighting must activate in response to a power outage of fire emergency.

Best Practice:

• Keep emergency lighting separate from standard lighting and clearly designate it as emergency lighting.

• Provide emergency lighting not just at exits or evacuation routes but also in specified areas that must be accessed in an emergency (e.g. fire control rooms)

• If standard lighting is used, designate only a subset of standard lighting as emergency lighting to lighten electrical load and to make it obvious to personnel that an outage has occurred.

• Test emergency lighting at least monthly for a minimum of 30 seconds.

• Consider floor-level lighting that is visible to personnel in a fire/smoke emergency.

• Document power load required for emergency lighting and ensure that UPS and / or generator systems can continuously power emergency lighting.

Unofficial FedRAMP Guidance:

• TBD

Assessment Evidence:

• Review documentation describing emergency exits and evacuation routes

• Verify evacuation routes

• Inspect emergency lighting

• If possible, test emergency lighting

• Most recent emergency lighting inspection report

• Maintenance records and test records for emergency lighting

CSP Implementation Tips:

• AWS: Fully inherited

• Azure: Fully inherited

• GCP: Fully inherited