What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on MA-6 Timely Maintenance?

Maintenance policy; Procedures addressing system maintenance; Service provider contracts; Service-level agreements; Inventory and availability of spare parts; System security plan.

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

The organization-defined system components and time period for obtaining maintenance support or spare parts were never set

NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5 · MA - Maintenance

`MA-6` Timely Maintenance

Obtain maintenance support and/or spare parts for organization-defined system components within organization-defined time period of failure.

Source: NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5, MA-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 800-53 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

Test of Organizational processes for ensuring timely maintenance · Document repository

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

Maintenance policy · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Procedures addressing system maintenance · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Service provider contracts · Vendor register / contract repository
Service-level agreements · Vendor register / contract repository
Inventory and availability of spare parts · Policy repository / GRC workspace
System security plan · 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

The organization-defined system components and time period for obtaining maintenance support or spare parts were never set
Maintenance contracts do not guarantee support or spare parts within the defined period after component failure

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

MA-5(5) Maintenance Personnel | Non-system Maintenance · MA-6(1) Timely Maintenance | Preventive Maintenance