What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on IA-2 Identification and Authentication (Organizational Users)?

Individual accounts for external personnel; Multi-factor configuration for external access; Evidence of no shared vendor accounts.

NIST SP 800-161 Rev 1 (supply chain) · C-SCRM Family: Identification and Authentication

`IA-2` Identification and Authentication (Organizational Users)

Ensures supplier and integrator personnel working as organizational users are individually identified and strongly authenticated.

Source: NIST SP 800-161 Rev 1 (supply chain), IA-2. 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

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

Multi-factor configuration for external access · Identity provider / directory

periodic reviewEvidence produced at each review

Evidence of no shared vendor accounts · Identity provider / directory

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

Individual accounts for external personnel · Policy repository / GRC workspace

First move

Start with the 1 of 3 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

one shared login per supplier
exceptions to multi-factor granted to suppliers for convenience

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-1 Policy and Procedures · IA-3 Device Identification and Authentication