What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on SC-23 Session Authenticity?

SSP SC-23 statement describing session authenticity protections (TLS, secure cookies, session token handling); Session management configuration and test results for token randomness and invalidation; Key management procedures including rotation and escrow; TLS configuration scan results across in scope endpoints; Network segmentation diagrams with VLAN and zone mapping; Denial of service protection configuration and capacity test results.

What is the most common gap auditors find on SC-23?

Firewall rule base contains stale allow any entries

FedRAMP High (NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5 baseline) · SC - System and Communications Protection

`SC-23` Session Authenticity

Protect authenticity of communications sessions.

Source: FedRAMP High (NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5 baseline), SC-23. 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

easy

to go live

Source control / CI pipeline

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

Session management configuration and test results for token randomness and invalidation · Source control / CI pipeline
TLS configuration scan results across in scope endpoints · Vulnerability scanner / patch tooling
Denial of service protection configuration and capacity test results · Source control / CI pipeline

periodic reviewEvidence produced at each review

none for this control

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

SSP SC-23 statement describing session authenticity protections (TLS, secure cookies, session token handling) · Document repository
Key management procedures including rotation and escrow · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Network segmentation diagrams with VLAN and zone mapping · Policy repository / GRC workspace

First move

Automate the pull from your Source control / CI pipeline. Pull-request approvals, pipeline test results and deployment records from source control, per release.

Common gaps auditors find

Firewall rule base contains stale allow any entries
Internal traffic between services unencrypted within trusted zones
Legacy TLS versions remain enabled on external services

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

SC-22 Architecture and Provisioning for Name/Address Resolution Service · SC-24 Fail in Known State