What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on IR-3 Incident Response Testing?

SSP IR-3 statement describing annual incident response testing, the scenarios used and how results are recorded; Incident response test report or tabletop record with lessons learned and plan updates; Regulatory notification procedure with jurisdiction specific timelines; Incident response plan with severity definitions and escalation paths; Incident response team roster with on call rotation; Tabletop and live exercise after action reports.

What is the most common gap auditors find on IR-3?

Third party incident responder retainer expired

FedRAMP High (NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5 baseline) · IR - Incident Response

`IR-3` Incident Response Testing

Requires the incident response capability to be tested at a defined frequency using defined tests, to determine its effectiveness, and the results documented.

Source: FedRAMP High (NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5 baseline), IR-3. The statement above is our statement of the clause, read from the published text and cited so you can check it against the official text, not the instrument verbatim. Open FedRAMP High (NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5 baseline) in the compliance library.

A FedRAMP baseline is a subset of NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5, enhancements included.

artefacts

held by a system

at each review

hard

to go live

Document repository

where the evidence lives

teal = a system already holds it · olive = produced at each review. To go live: easy when half or more of the artefacts are already held by a system, moderate from a quarter to a half, hard below a quarter.

These are the artefacts auditors commonly ask for on this requirement, our guidance rather than text from the standard. Your assessor decides what is sufficient in your context, and asks for samples across the period when a report covers one.

system holds itEvidence a system already holds

none for this control

periodic reviewEvidence produced at each review

Incident response test report or tabletop record with lessons learned and plan updates · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Tabletop and live exercise after action reports · Document repository
Incident ticket samples covering detection, containment, and lessons learned · Ticketing / ITSM

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

SSP IR-3 statement describing annual incident response testing, the scenarios used and how results are recorded · Document repository
Regulatory notification procedure with jurisdiction specific timelines · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Incident response plan with severity definitions and escalation paths · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Incident response team roster with on call rotation · Document repository

First move

No system holds this evidence for you: it is people and documents. Reminders and routing to the owner still save time. Put the document under version control with an owner and review date, and log each review as a record with reviewer and date.

Common gaps auditors find

Third party incident responder retainer expired
Detection coverage gaps allow incidents to be discovered externally
Severity criteria inconsistent across teams leading to under reporting
Lessons learned captured but corrective actions not tracked to closure

Do this for your whole sheet

Paste the rows you run your controls from and get this mapping for every control at once, with the periodic-review ones flagged and a first move per row. No account for the first run.

Build my evidence sheet

IR-2(2) Automated Training Environments · IR-3(2) Incident Response Testing | Coordination with Related Plans (IR-3(2))