What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on IA-5 Authenticator Management?

SSP IA-5 statement covering authenticator issuance after identity verification, password and token rules and protection of authenticators; Password policy and token issuance records including identity check before issue; Password policy configuration export from the identity provider; Service account credential vault inventory and rotation logs; Identity proofing records for high assurance accounts; Authenticator lifecycle procedure including reset and revocation.

What is the most common gap auditors find on IA-5?

Password complexity enforced but reuse not blocked across systems

FedRAMP Moderate (NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5 baseline) · IA - Identification and Authentication

`IA-5` Authenticator Management

Manage authenticators; verify identity prior to issuing; establish initial content; protect.

Source: FedRAMP Moderate (NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5 baseline), IA-5. 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 Moderate (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

Identity provider / directory

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

Password policy configuration export from the identity provider · Identity provider / directory
Service account credential vault inventory and rotation logs · Identity provider / directory

periodic reviewEvidence produced at each review

Password policy and token issuance records including identity check before issue · Identity provider / directory
Identity proofing records for high assurance accounts · Identity provider / directory

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

SSP IA-5 statement covering authenticator issuance after identity verification, password and token rules and protection of authenticators · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Authenticator lifecycle procedure including reset and revocation · Policy repository / GRC workspace

First move

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

Common gaps auditors find

Password complexity enforced but reuse not blocked across systems
Federation trust relationships not reviewed when partnerships change
MFA exceptions granted indefinitely without compensating controls

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

IA-4(4) Identifier Management | Identify User Status (IA-4(4)) · IA-5(1) Password-Based Authentication