What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on AU-16(2) Cross-organizational Audit Logging | Sharing of Audit Information?

Audit and accountability policy; System security plan; Privacy plan; Procedures addressing cross-organizational sharing of audit information; Information sharing agreements.

What is the most common gap auditors find on AU-16(2)?

Cross-organizational audit information is shared without defined sharing agreements

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

`AU-16(2)` Cross-organizational Audit Logging | Sharing of Audit Information

Provide cross-organizational audit information to [organizations] based on organization-defined cross-organizational sharing agreements.

Source: NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5, AU-16(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 800-53 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

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

none for this control

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
Procedures addressing cross-organizational sharing of audit information · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Information sharing agreements · Vendor register / contract repository

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

Cross-organizational audit information is shared without defined sharing agreements
The organizations entitled to receive cross-organizational audit information were never identified

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

AU-16(1) Cross-organizational Audit Logging | Identity Preservation · AU-16(3) Cross-organizational Audit Logging | Disassociability