What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on CM-6 Configuration Settings?

Setting standards applied to delivered component types; Compliance evidence after deployment; Records of default credentials and services changed or disabled.

What is the most common gap auditors find on CM-6?

appliances run on shipped defaults

NIST SP 800-161 Rev 1 (supply chain) · C-SCRM Family: Configuration Management

`CM-6` Configuration Settings

Sets and verifies secure settings on delivered components rather than accepting the supplier default.

Source: NIST SP 800-161 Rev 1 (supply chain), CM-6. 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 NIST SP 800-161 Rev 1 (supply chain) in the compliance library.

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

Compliance evidence after deployment · Source control / CI pipeline
Records of default credentials and services changed or disabled · Identity provider / directory

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

Setting standards applied to delivered component types · 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

appliances run on shipped defaults
supplier forbids configuration change and the risk is unaccepted

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

CM-5 Access Restrictions for Change · CM-7 Least Functionality