The application must implement approved cryptographic mechanisms to prevent unauthorized modification of organization-defined information at rest on organization-defined information system components.

Applications handling data requiring "data at rest" protections must employ cryptographic mechanisms to prevent unauthorized disclosure and modification of the information at rest. Selection of a cryptographic mechanism is based on the need to protect the integrity of organizational information. The strength of the mechanism is commensurate with the security category and/or classification of the information. Organizations have the flexibility to either encrypt all information on storage devices (i.e., full disk encryption) or encrypt specific data structures (e.g., files, records, or fields).