system support function

A category of operational responsibilities — such as configuration management, quality assurance and testing, system management, programming, and network security — that collectively maintain, operate, or oversee an information system rather than directly advancing its mission or business output. In NIST's treatment of separation of duties, the concept is used to distinguish these infrastructure-and-oversight tasks from mission functions, with the requirement that they be divided among different individuals or roles. The rationale is that separating such functions addresses the potential for abuse of authorized privileges and helps reduce the risk of malevolent activity without collusion. Practically, frameworks such as NIST SP 800-53 AC-5 apply this by requiring that security personnel who administer access control functions do not also administer audit functions, and that organizations consider the entirety of systems and system components when developing separation-of-duties policy.

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