EvidenceSheet
NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5 · AU - Audit and Accountability

AU-11 Audit Record Retention

Retain audit records for organization-defined time period consistent with records retention policy to provide support for after-the-fact investigations of incidents and to meet regulatory and organizational information retention requirements.

Source: NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5, AU-11. 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.

9
artefacts
1
held by a system
3
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

  • Audit logs · SIEM / log platform

periodic reviewEvidence produced at each review

  • Organization-defined retention period for audit records · Data governance / DLP tooling
  • Audit record archives · Policy repository / GRC workspace
  • Audit records · Policy repository / GRC workspace

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

  • Audit and accountability policy · Policy repository / GRC workspace
  • System security plan · Policy repository / GRC workspace
  • Privacy plan · Policy repository / GRC workspace
  • Audit record retention policy and procedures · Policy repository / GRC workspace
  • Security plan · Policy repository / GRC workspace

First move

Mostly documents and reviews. Pull the 1 system-held artefact from your SIEM / log platform on a schedule; put the documents under version control with an owner and review date, and log each review as a dated record with a named reviewer.

Common gaps auditors find

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.

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AU-10(4) Non-repudiation | Validate Binding of Information Reviewer Identity · AU-11(1) Audit Record Retention | Long-term Retrieval Capability