Control Inheritance

Control inheritance is the situation where a NIST SP 800-171 requirement is satisfied for the contractor by an external service provider (typically a cloud provider, MSP, or identity provider) rather than implemented directly by the contractor. The contractor 'inherits' the control from the provider and documents the inheritance in the shared responsibility matrix.

For example, a contractor using Microsoft 365 GCC High inherits many physical security and infrastructure controls from Microsoft. The contractor doesn't need to implement those controls themselves but must document the inheritance and rely on Microsoft's FedRAMP authorization as the proof.

Not every requirement can be inherited. The contractor remains accountable for the requirement even when the implementation is inherited.