What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on RA-3 Risk Assessment?

SSP RA-3 statement describing the annual risk assessment, methodology and how results feed the POA&M; Current risk assessment report with threat sources, likelihood and impact ratings; Penetration test report with retest evidence; Threat intelligence feed subscriptions and triage workflow; Risk acceptance memos signed by accountable executives; Risk assessment methodology approved by leadership.

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

Risk register entries lack named owner or due date

FedRAMP Moderate (NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5 baseline) · RA - Risk Assessment

`RA-3` Risk Assessment

Conduct risk assessment annually (FedRAMP); document; review and update.

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

hard

to go live

Policy repository / GRC workspace

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

Current risk assessment report with threat sources, likelihood and impact ratings · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Penetration test report with retest evidence · Vulnerability scanner / patch tooling

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

SSP RA-3 statement describing the annual risk assessment, methodology and how results feed the POA&M · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Threat intelligence feed subscriptions and triage workflow · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Risk acceptance memos signed by accountable executives · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Risk assessment methodology approved by leadership · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Risk register with likelihood, impact, and treatment owners · Policy repository / GRC workspace

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

Risk register entries lack named owner or due date
Penetration tests scope narrow and exclude key applications
Scan coverage gaps for containerised and ephemeral workloads
Threat intelligence consumed but not operationalised into detections

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

RA-2 Security Categorization · RA-3(1) Risk Assessment | Supply Chain Risk Assessment (RA-3(1))