Compliance Mapping: NIST AI RMF & EU AI Act

How Strathon helps organizations meet AI governance and regulatory requirements.

This document maps Strathon's capabilities to specific controls in the NIST AI Risk Management Framework (AI 100-1, AI 600-1) and obligations in the EU AI Act (Regulation (EU) 2024/1689) for high-risk AI systems.

Deadline context: EU AI Act Article 6(2) high-risk obligations take effect December 2, 2027 for standalone Annex III systems under the Digital Omnibus agreement (May 2026, pending formal adoption); transparency obligations and the broader framework remain active from August 2, 2026. NIST AI RMF is voluntary but increasingly referenced by U.S. federal agencies (FTC, SEC, OCC, CFPB) in enforcement guidance and procurement requirements.

EU AI Act — High-Risk AI System Obligations (Articles 9-15)

Article 9: Risk Management System

Requires a documented, ongoing risk management process covering the entire AI lifecycle, including identification and evaluation of known and foreseeable risks.

RequirementStrathon implementation
Identify and evaluate risksCEL policy engine evaluates every agent action against configurable risk rules. OWASP Agentic Top 10 templates provide a starting risk taxonomy.
Test for appropriate risk measuresPolicy simulation endpoint (POST /v1/policies/simulate) dry-runs policies against historical spans without affecting production.
Ongoing risk managementContinuous policy evaluation on every span at ingest. Policy evaluation metrics (match_count, last_matched_at) track enforcement over time.
Residual risk documentationAudit log with tamper-evident hash chain records every policy decision, intervention, and configuration change.

Article 10: Data and Data Governance

Requires training, validation, and testing datasets to meet quality criteria, with documented data provenance and bias detection.

RequirementStrathon implementation
Data provenanceFull OTel trace capture with span attributes preserves the provenance chain for every agent decision (model, prompt, tool call, result).
Bias detectionPII redaction at ingest catches sensitive attributes. Cost attribution endpoint surfaces per-model and per-agent usage patterns that can reveal distribution skew.

Note: Article 10 primarily applies to model providers. Strathon is a runtime firewall, not a training platform. The controls above support deployers documenting their data governance posture for agent runtime data.

Article 11: Technical Documentation

Requires comprehensive records of system design decisions, data lineage, testing methodologies, and performance benchmarks.

RequirementStrathon implementation
System design recordsPolicy export (GET /v1/policies/export) produces a portable snapshot of all active rules, suitable for version-controlled documentation.
Performance benchmarksSpan aggregation (GET /v1/spans/aggregate) and cost attribution (GET /v1/costs) provide performance and cost metrics over any time range.
Testing documentationPolicy simulation against historical spans generates testable, auditable evidence of policy behavior.

Article 12: Record-Keeping

Mandates automatic event logging to facilitate risk identification and post-market monitoring. Logs must be proportionate to the intended purpose and enable traceability.

RequirementStrathon implementation
Automatic event loggingOTLP protobuf ingest captures every agent span automatically. No manual instrumentation needed: SDK auto-instruments 10 frameworks.
TraceabilityTrace tree endpoint (GET /v1/traces/{trace_id}/tree) reconstructs the full execution graph of any agent session.
Tamper-evident recordsHMAC-SHA256 hash chain on the audit log. Per-minute Merkle root anchors. Any modification to historical records is cryptographically detectable.
Log retentionConfigurable per-project retention with automatic partition management (premake 3 months, drop after retention window).

Article 12 is Strathon's strongest alignment. The audit log satisfies 12(1)'s mandate for automatic event logging that enables tracing the operation of the AI system throughout its lifecycle.

Article 13: Transparency and Provision of Information to Deployers

Requires clear instructions for use, covering intended purpose, known limitations, performance metrics, and required human oversight level.

RequirementStrathon implementation
Performance metricsPrometheus /metrics endpoint with 16-panel Grafana dashboard template. Span aggregation provides per-agent, per-model, per-tool analytics.
System behavior visibilityAgent topology map (GET /v1/topology) shows agent-to-tool relationships discovered from trace data.
Deployer informationOpenAPI 3.1 spec at /openapi.json with Swagger UI and ReDoc. 30+ tagged endpoint groups.

Article 14: Human Oversight

Requires high-risk AI systems to allow effective human oversight: human-in-the-loop, human-on-the-loop, or human-in-command capability.

RequirementStrathon implementation
Human-in-the-looprequire_approval policies gate high-risk tool calls on an operator decision (interactive where the surface can pause; otherwise fail-closed). Kill-switch halts (POST /v1/halts) immediately stop agent execution at project or agent scope. Operators can intervene at any point.
Human-on-the-loopReal-time policy enforcement evaluates every tool call. Alert action triggers webhooks for operator notification. Budget monitor auto-halts agents exceeding cost or iteration thresholds.
Human-in-commandDeny-by-default policy mode (allow-list). Only explicitly permitted tool calls proceed. All others are blocked before execution.
Override and disableHalts CRUD API. Budget CRUD API. Policy enable/disable/delete with batch operations.

Article 14 is Strathon's core value proposition. The combination of halts, policies, budgets, and deny-by-default mode provides all three levels of human oversight defined in the Act.

Article 15: Accuracy, Robustness and Cybersecurity

Requires appropriate levels of accuracy, robustness, and cybersecurity for the risk level of the AI system.

RequirementStrathon implementation
CybersecurityArgon2id password hashing, SHA-256 API key hashing, HMAC-signed webhooks, per-IP login rate limiting, key rotation with grace period, key expiration with auto-reaper.
RobustnessFail-closed SDK mode (policy check failure blocks tool execution). Head-based sampling with force-keep for critical traces. PII redaction at ingest.
ResilienceDeep /ready probe checks DB, migrations, partitions, and 5 background tasks. Advisory-lock-guarded workers prevent dual execution.

NIST AI RMF (AI 100-1) — Core Functions

GOVERN: Organizational Risk Culture

SubcategoryStrathon implementation
GV-1.1: Legal/regulatory understandingThis compliance mapping document. Policy templates mapped to OWASP Agentic Top 10 threats.
GV-1.3: Risk management level determinationPer-project settings with configurable retention, sampling rates, and PII redaction rules. Projects isolate risk management per deployment context.
GV-1.5: Ongoing monitoring and periodic reviewContinuous policy evaluation at ingest. Budget monitor runs on periodic ticks. Key reaper checks for expiring credentials.
GV-1.6: AI system inventoryProjects CRUD with auto-key mint. Each project represents an inventoried AI system with its own policies, budgets, halts, and API keys.
GV-4.3: Organizational practices for managing AI riskRBAC with 4 fixed roles (owner/admin/operator/viewer). Audit trail for every configuration change.

MAP: Risk Context and Identification

SubcategoryStrathon implementation
MP-2.3: Scientific integrity and reproducibilityTamper-evident audit log with hash chain and Merkle anchors ensures log integrity. Policy versioning captures every rule change.
MP-3.4: Risks from third-party entitiesAgent topology map shows all agent-to-tool relationships. Tool-level policy enforcement applies to every framework integration (10 frameworks).
MP-5.1: Likelihood and magnitude of impactPolicy evaluation metrics (match_count, last_matched_at) quantify how often each risk rule fires. Span aggregation provides error rates and cost per agent.

MEASURE: Risk Assessment and Analysis

SubcategoryStrathon implementation
MS-1.1: AI risks based on intended purposePolicy simulation dry-runs rules against historical data. Cost attribution surfaces per-model and per-agent spend for risk-proportional resource allocation.
MS-2.5: AI system trustworthinessContinuous policy enforcement measures every agent action against the configured trust boundary. Policy conflict detection identifies contradictions in the rule set.
MS-2.6: Evaluation of security risksPII redaction at ingest. Per-key rate limiting. Login rate limiting. Webhook HMAC signing. API key rotation with grace period.
MS-2.7: AI system evaluation with domain expertPolicy simulation endpoint enables domain experts to test rule behavior against real traces without production impact.

MANAGE: Risk Response and Monitoring

SubcategoryStrathon implementation
MG-1.1: Risk treatment plansPolicies with seven action types (block/steer/throttle/log/alert/require_approval/allow) map directly to risk treatment options: avoid (block), mitigate (steer/throttle), accept (log/allow), escalate (require_approval/alert).
MG-2.2: Mechanisms to halt AI systemsKill-switch halts at project and agent scope. Budget monitor auto-halts on threshold breach. Both create audit trail entries.
MG-2.6: Post-deployment monitoringPrometheus metrics, Grafana dashboard, webhook notifications, budget monitoring, and the agent topology map provide continuous post-deployment visibility.
MG-3.1: Post-deployment risk managementPolicy export/import enables staging-to-production promotion with version-controlled rule sets. Policy versioning tracks every change.
MG-4.1: Post-deployment monitoring, appeal, and overrideHalts provide immediate override. Audit log provides the appeal evidence trail. Policy dry-run simulation enables testing changes before deployment.

NIST AI 600-1 — Generative AI Profile

GAI Risk CategoryStrathon implementation
CBRN InformationTool-call blocking policies can prevent agents from accessing CBRN-relevant tools or data sources.
ConfabulationTrace capture preserves model outputs alongside tool call context, enabling factual verification workflows.
Data PrivacyPII redaction at ingest (regex + Luhn-validated credit card detection). Configurable per-project redaction rules.
Information Security (Prompt Injection)CEL policies can match on span attributes to detect prompt injection patterns. OWASP template for prompt injection included.
Harmful BiasPer-agent, per-model cost attribution and span aggregation surface usage distribution patterns.
Intellectual PropertyAudit log provides tamper-evident records of all agent actions for IP dispute resolution.

OWASP Agentic Top 10 Coverage

Strathon ships policy templates mapped to the OWASP Top 10 for Agentic Applications 2026. These are available via GET /v1/policy-templates and can be applied with a single API call.

OWASP ThreatTemplateStrathon mechanism
ASI01 Agent Goal Hijackprompt-injection-detectionCEL policy on span attributes
ASI02 Tool Misuse and Exploitationtool-access-allowlistDeny-by-default (allow-list mode)
ASI03 Identity and Privilege Abuse(built-in)Scoped API keys, RBAC, MFA, per-key rate limits
ASI04 Agentic Supply Chain Vulnerabilities(built-in)MCP gateway with policy evaluation, egress proxy, credential scanning
ASI05 Unexpected Code Executiontool-access-allowlistBlock/allow-list on shell, code, and SQL tools; approval before code execution
ASI06 Memory and Context Poisoning(built-in)Behavioral drift detection (Vigil), halt propagation, content redaction
ASI07 Insecure Inter-Agent Communication(built-in)MCP gateway policy evaluation, fail-closed enforcement
ASI08 Cascading Failuresiteration-budget-guard, cost-budget-guardBudgets with auto-halt, circuit breakers, kill switches, halt propagation
ASI09 Human-Agent Trust Exploitation(built-in)Human approval workflows, tamper-evident audit log, SARIF export
ASI10 Rogue Agents(built-in)Vigil drift detection, heartbeat monitoring, kill switches

ISO/IEC 42001:2023 Alignment

NIST published an official crosswalk mapping AI RMF subcategories to ISO 42001 clauses. Organizations using Strathon's NIST AI RMF alignment (documented above) can reference this crosswalk to map their Strathon controls to ISO 42001 certification requirements.

Key ISO 42001 clauses covered by Strathon:

  • Clause 6.1.2 (AI risk assessment): Policy engine + simulation + evaluation metrics.
  • Clause 8.4 (AI system lifecycle): Trace capture, policy versioning, audit log.
  • Clause 9.1 (Monitoring, measurement, analysis): Prometheus metrics, span aggregation, topology map.
  • Clause 10.1 (Continual improvement): Policy export/import for staged rollout, evaluation metrics for rule tuning.

SOC 2 Trust Service Criteria

CriteriaStrathon implementation
CC6.1: Logical access controlsRBAC (4 roles), API key scopes, per-key rate limiting.
CC6.3: Restrict access based on authorizationScope-based API key auth. Owner/admin/operator/viewer hierarchy.
CC7.2: Monitor system components for anomaliesBudget monitor auto-halt, policy match metrics, Prometheus /metrics.
CC8.1: Change managementPolicy versioning, audit log, tamper-evident hash chain.

Summary

Strathon provides runtime enforcement and observability controls that directly address the operational requirements of EU AI Act Articles 9-15, NIST AI RMF GOVERN/MAP/MEASURE/MANAGE functions, and the NIST AI 600-1 Generative AI Profile. It does not replace organizational governance (policies, training, risk committees) but provides the technical infrastructure that makes compliance demonstrable and auditable.

For organizations preparing for the EU AI Act high-risk deadline (December 2, 2027 for Annex III systems under the Digital Omnibus), Strathon's audit log, policy engine, kill-switches, and budget controls provide the Article 12 (record-keeping) and Article 14 (human oversight) capabilities that are the most scrutinized during conformity assessment.

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