What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on AC-2(4) Account Management | Automated Audit Actions?

Access control policy; Procedures addressing account management; System design documentation; System configuration settings and associated documentation; Notifications/alerts of account creation, modification, enabling, disabling, and removal actions; System audit records.

What is the most common gap auditors find on AC-2(4)?

Account creation, modification and removal actions are not automatically audited on all components, only on the primary directory

NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5 · AC - Access Control

`AC-2(4)` Account Management | Automated Audit Actions

Automatically audit account creation, modification, enabling, disabling, and removal actions.

Source: NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5, AC-2(4). 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 800-53 Rev 5 in the compliance library.

Base controls and their enhancements. Which apply follows the baseline you are assessed against (for example FedRAMP Moderate or High, or the low, moderate and high baselines of SP 800-53B). Text in square brackets is a parameter your organisation sets.

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

Notifications/alerts of account creation, modification, enabling, disabling, and removal actions · Identity provider / directory
Test of Automated mechanisms implementing account management functions · Identity provider / directory

periodic reviewEvidence produced at each review

System audit records · Identity provider / directory

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

Access control policy · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Procedures addressing account management · Policy repository / GRC workspace
System design documentation · Policy repository / GRC workspace
System configuration settings and associated documentation · Policy repository / GRC workspace
System security plan · Policy repository / GRC workspace

First move

Start with the 2 of 8 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

Account creation, modification and removal actions are not automatically audited on all components, only on the primary directory
Account disabling and enabling events are missing from audit records, preventing reconstruction of who changed account status

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

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