What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on MA-3 Maintenance Tools (MA-3)?

SSP MA-3 statement listing approved maintenance tools and how their use is controlled and reviewed; Approved maintenance tool list with the last review date and tool inspection records; Tool sanitisation records for media leaving the facility; Vendor maintenance agreements with security clauses; System maintenance policy and approved maintenance windows; Maintenance ticket records with approvals and post change verification.

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

Maintenance vendors lack signed confidentiality and security clauses

FedRAMP High (NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5 baseline) · MA - Maintenance

`MA-3` Maintenance Tools (MA-3)

Maintenance Tools. a. Approve, control, and monitor the use of system maintenance tools; and b. Review previously approved system maintenance tools organization-defined frequency

Source: FedRAMP High (NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5 baseline), MA-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

moderate

to go live

Physical access / facilities

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

Tool sanitisation records for media leaving the facility · Physical access / facilities
Maintenance ticket records with approvals and post change verification · Ticketing / ITSM

periodic reviewEvidence produced at each review

none for this control

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

SSP MA-3 statement listing approved maintenance tools and how their use is controlled and reviewed · Document repository
Approved maintenance tool list with the last review date and tool inspection records · Document repository
Vendor maintenance agreements with security clauses · Vendor register / contract repository
System maintenance policy and approved maintenance windows · Policy repository / GRC workspace

First move

Start with the 2 of 6 artefacts that already live in a system (Physical access / facilities); keep the periodic reviews but log each one as a dated record with a named reviewer.

Common gaps auditors find

Maintenance vendors lack signed confidentiality and security clauses
Vendor engineers granted standing access rather than session based access
Remote maintenance sessions unmonitored after initial authentication

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

MA-2(2) Automated Maintenance Activities · MA-3(1) Maintenance Tools | Inspect Tools (MA-3(1))