What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on PE-17 Alternate Work Site?

Physical and environmental protection policy; Procedures addressing alternate work sites for organizational personnel; List of security controls required for alternate work sites; Assessments of security controls at alternate work sites; System security plan; Privacy plan.

What is the most common gap auditors find on PE-17?

Alternate work sites permitted for employees are not determined or documented, and required controls there are undefined

NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5 · PE - Physical and Environmental Protection

`PE-17` Alternate Work Site

a. Determine and document the organization-defined alternate work sites allowed for use by employees; b. Employ the following controls at alternate work sites: organization-defined controls; c. Assess the effectiveness of controls at alternate work sites; and d. Provide a means for employees to communicate with information security and privacy personnel in case of incidents.

Source: NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5, PE-17. 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

Assessments of security controls at alternate work sites · Physical access / facilities
Test of Organizational processes for security and privacy at alternate work sites; mechanisms supporting alternate work sites; security and privacy controls employed at alternate work sites; means of communication between personnel at alternate work sites and security and privacy personnel · Physical access / facilities

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

Physical and environmental protection policy · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Procedures addressing alternate work sites for organizational personnel · Policy repository / GRC workspace
List of security controls required for alternate work sites · Policy repository / GRC workspace
System security plan · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Privacy 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

Alternate work sites permitted for employees are not determined or documented, and required controls there are undefined
Effectiveness of controls at alternate work sites is never assessed, and remote staff lack a defined incident reporting means

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

PE-16 Delivery and Removal · PE-18 Location of System Components