SC-30(4): Misleading Information

SC-30(4) requires you to deliberately place realistic but misleading security-state information in designated locations (often attacker-visible surfaces) so adversaries draw wrong conclusions about your defenses. To operationalize it, define where deception is allowed, deploy and monitor approved “misleading” artifacts (banners, decoy services, honeytokens), and retain evidence that the activity is controlled, authorized, and reviewed. ¹

Key takeaways:

• Treat SC-30(4) as a governed deception capability: scoped, approved, and monitored, not ad hoc “security by obscurity.” ¹
• The hard part is control design and evidence: documented authorization, placements, change control, and monitoring outcomes. ²
• Misleading information must be realistic enough to influence attacker behavior but safe enough to avoid harming users, operations, or legal posture. ¹

SC-30(4): misleading information requirement is one of the NIST SP 800-53 controls that can feel “optional” until an assessor asks two questions: where is it deployed, and who approved it. The control is about deception: intentionally presenting believable signals about your security posture to slow, divert, or expose adversaries. In practice, that means you publish or plant controlled artifacts that are visible in the environments attackers probe, then you watch for interaction with those artifacts as detection telemetry.

For a Compliance Officer, CCO, or GRC lead, the fastest path to implementation is to treat SC-30(4) like any other security capability: define scope, assign an owner, write a short procedure, implement in a limited set of locations, and collect repeatable evidence. You also need clear guardrails. Deception can create operational risk if it confuses your own responders, breaks support workflows, or unintentionally misleads legitimate users. This page gives requirement-level guidance that you can hand to a security engineering lead and audit against.

Regulatory text

Text (excerpt): “Employ realistic, but misleading information in {{ insert: param, sc-30.04_odp }} about its security state or posture.” ¹

Operator meaning: You must (1) identify the approved places you will present security-posture signals, and (2) intentionally make some of those signals realistic but wrong, so adversaries waste time or reveal themselves. The “where” is what the organization defines in its parameters for the control (the sc-30.04_odp insertion point in the catalog). Your implementation must show that the misleading information is intentional, governed, and reviewed, not accidental misconfiguration. ¹

Plain-English interpretation

SC-30(4) tells you to run a controlled deception program focused on “security posture cues.” These cues can include system banners, endpoint or server responses, externally visible configuration artifacts, decoy admin pages, fake telemetry endpoints, honeytokens in repositories, or synthetic “canary” credentials. The objective is to make attacker reconnaissance less reliable and to generate high-signal alerts when someone touches the decoys.

This is not permission to lie in contracts, attestations, customer security documentation, incident notifications, or regulatory submissions. Keep SC-30(4) strictly inside your technical security control surface areas and governed operational contexts. The control text is about misleading information “about its security state or posture” in designated places, not business communications. ¹

Who it applies to (entity and operational context)

Applies to:

• Federal information systems implementing NIST SP 800-53 controls. ²
• Contractor systems handling federal data where NIST SP 800-53 is flowed down or used as the control baseline. ²

Operational contexts where it’s most defensible:

• Internet-facing attack surface (DMZ, external apps, API gateways) where reconnaissance is expected.
• High-value internal segments (privileged access infrastructure, admin networks) where honeytokens can catch lateral movement.
• CI/CD and code repositories where planted canary secrets can detect exfiltration or misuse.
• Email, identity, and SaaS where canary tokens or decoy accounts detect compromise attempts.

Contexts where you need extra care:

• User-facing statements that could mislead legitimate users about protection or monitoring.
• Safety-critical or regulated operations where false signals can impair response or availability.
• Third-party managed environments where your deception artifacts could violate provider policies or contracts.

What you actually need to do (step-by-step)

1) Define the “where” (the control parameter) and boundaries

Create a short SC-30(4) scope statement that lists approved placement locations for misleading posture information (your sc-30.04_odp equivalent). Keep it tight and specific:

• External web/app banners and headers
• Decoy endpoints and services
• Honeytokens in specific repos
• Decoy admin portals in isolated networks

Add explicit exclusions (contracts, customer SOC reports, incident comms, security questionnaires). This prevents the control from being misapplied. ¹

2) Assign ownership and required approvals

Set a control owner (often Security Engineering or Detection/Response) and define who must approve:

• Security (design and monitoring)
• Legal/Privacy (guardrails, especially if user interaction could occur)
• IT/Operations (change windows, availability impacts)

Document the approval path in your procedure so you can show governance. ²

3) Choose deception patterns that are “realistic but safe”

Pick one or more patterns that meet the “realistic” test without creating operational harm:

Pattern	Example artifact	Primary value	Key guardrail
Decoy services	Fake admin login on isolated host	Recon diversion, early detection	Must be isolated, monitored, and clearly tagged internally
Honeytokens	Canary credentials in a repo	Detect theft/exfiltration	Must not grant real access; alerting must be tested
Misleading posture banners	Generic security banner or hardened-message	Reduce recon accuracy	Avoid claims that create legal exposure; keep it technical
Deceptive telemetry endpoints	Fake “/metrics” or “/debug” path	Tripwire for scanners	Ensure it cannot be abused for DoS or data leakage

The requirement is “misleading information…about its security state or posture,” so your artifacts should plausibly communicate posture signals an attacker would interpret. ¹

4) Build the deployment procedure with change control hooks

Your procedure should specify:

• Where artifacts live (systems, repos, network segments)
• How they are deployed (IaC, config management, EDR policy, web config)
• Change control requirements (ticketing, approvals, rollback plan)
• How you label deception assets internally (to avoid confusing responders)
• Logging requirements (what events are generated, where they go)

Treat deception assets like production security controls: versioned, reviewed, and testable.

5) Instrument detection and response for deception hits

SC-30(4) becomes defensible when it generates actionable monitoring:

• Define alert rules for interactions (HTTP requests to decoy paths, login attempts, secret use)
• Route alerts to your SIEM/SOAR and on-call workflow
• Create a triage playbook: validate, scope, contain, preserve evidence
• Run at least one tabletop or functional test to confirm alerts trigger and responders recognize the decoy

This is also where many programs fail: decoys exist, but nobody watches them.

6) Validate realism, avoid collateral damage, and review periodically

Operationalize reviews:

• Confirm decoys still look realistic after app changes
• Confirm honeytokens have not drifted into legitimate workflows
• Confirm monitoring and paging are working
• Confirm the placements remain inside the approved sc-30.04_odp scope

Document the review and any remediation actions. ²

Required evidence and artifacts to retain

Keep evidence that proves design, authorization, and operation:

Design and governance

• SC-30(4) control statement with defined placement locations (the “where” parameter)
• Deception standard/procedure (1–3 pages is fine if it’s specific)
• Approval records (Security + Legal/Privacy + Ops as applicable)
• Risk assessment or rationale for chosen deception patterns

Implementation and operation

• Architecture diagram or inventory of deception assets (decoy hosts/endpoints/honeytokens)
• Change tickets and deployment records (including rollback plans)
• Monitoring configuration evidence (SIEM rules, alert routing, dashboards)
• Test evidence (alert firing test, tabletop notes, incident drill outcomes)
• Periodic review records and remediation tickets

Audit-ready mapping

• Control mapping showing owner, procedure, and recurring evidence artifacts (this is explicitly recommended as a practical control approach). ¹

Daydream can help by keeping the SC-30(4) control page tied to the owner, procedure, and a recurring evidence checklist, so you can produce a consistent evidence packet on demand instead of rebuilding it before every assessment. ¹

Common exam/audit questions and hangups

Auditors and assessors tend to get stuck on scope and safety. Expect questions like:

• “What are the approved locations for misleading posture information?” (Show your defined parameter/scope.) ¹
• “Who approved deploying deception controls, and when were they last reviewed?”
• “How do you prevent deception assets from affecting legitimate users or operations?”
• “What alerts fire when a decoy is touched, and what is the response process?”
• “Show evidence that decoys/honeytokens are still deployed and monitored.”

Hangup: teams show screenshots of a decoy page but can’t show alert telemetry, response workflow, or approvals. That reads as an experiment, not a control.

Frequent implementation mistakes and how to avoid them

1. Accidental deception via stale documentation. Misleading posture information must be intentional. Fix by documenting scope and approvals and keeping customer-facing materials out of scope.

2. Deploying decoys without isolation. A decoy that can be pivoted through becomes an additional attack surface. Fix by network segmentation, no real credentials, and hard egress limits.

3. No monitoring ownership. If nobody owns the alerts, your decoys become dead weight. Fix by assigning on-call routing and testing alert delivery.

4. Over-broad placements. Planting honeytokens everywhere creates noise and operational risk. Fix by limited placements tied to threat models.

5. Confusing your own responders. If IR cannot quickly recognize deception assets, triage slows down. Fix by internal labeling, inventory, and playbooks.

Enforcement context and risk implications

No public enforcement cases were provided in the source catalog for this requirement, so treat this as an assessment and mission-risk control rather than an enforcement-driven one. Your practical risk is assessment failure (can’t show evidence) or self-inflicted outages (decoys causing confusion or introducing new vulnerabilities). ²

A practical 30/60/90-day execution plan

First 30 days (stand up governance and pick placements)

• Name the SC-30(4) control owner and backup.
• Draft the scope statement listing approved locations for misleading posture information.
• Get documented approvals from Security, Ops, and Legal/Privacy as needed.
• Select one deception pattern per environment (external + internal) to pilot.
• Define what constitutes a “hit” and where alerts will route.

Days 31–60 (implement a pilot and make it observable)

• Deploy decoy endpoints/services in the approved locations via change control.
• Plant a limited set of honeytokens with strict non-production access rules.
• Implement SIEM detections and ensure on-call routing works.
• Run functional tests: trigger the decoy, verify alert, document triage steps.
• Build the evidence packet template (what you will show an assessor).

Days 61–90 (harden, expand, and make it repeatable)

• Expand to additional approved placements where threat modeling supports it.
• Add periodic review tasks to your GRC calendar and ops runbooks.
• Train IR/SOC on deception asset inventory and triage playbooks.
• Run an internal assessment against SC-30(4): can you prove scope, deployment, monitoring, and review?

Frequently Asked Questions

Does SC-30(4) mean we should hide our real security controls?

No. It requires realistic but misleading information in approved locations about posture. You still need strong real controls; deception is additive and must be governed. ¹

Where should we place “misleading information” to satisfy the requirement?

Define the specific placement locations in your control parameter/scope (the sc-30.04_odp insertion point) and keep it consistent across environments. Common placements are attacker-visible surfaces like decoy endpoints or banners. ¹

Are honeytokens sufficient for SC-30(4)?

Often, yes, if they are realistic, placed in approved locations, and generate monitored alerts with a response playbook. Keep evidence of placement, monitoring rules, and test results.

Could this create legal risk if we “mislead” someone?

Keep deception confined to technical attack surfaces and avoid misleading statements in contracts, attestations, or customer communications. Get Legal/Privacy review for the deception standard and any user-adjacent artifacts.

What evidence will an auditor ask for first?

The defined scope/locations, proof the deception artifacts exist in those locations, and proof they are monitored and reviewed. Approval and change records close the loop.

How do we keep the deception program from confusing incident response?

Maintain an inventory of deception assets, tag them internally, and add specific IR playbook steps for “deception hit” triage so responders know what they’re looking at.

Footnotes

1. NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 OSCAL JSON

2. NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5