What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on RA-10 Threat Hunting?

Risk assessment policy; Assessment reports; Audit records/event logs; Threat hunting capability; System security plan; Test of Organizational processes for assessments and audits; mechanisms/tools supporting and/or implementing threat hunting capabilities.

What is the most common gap auditors find on RA-10?

No cyber threat hunting capability has been established

NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5 · RA - Risk Assessment

`RA-10` Threat Hunting

a. Establish and maintain a cyber threat hunting capability to: 1. Search for indicators of compromise in organizational systems; and 2. Detect, track, and disrupt threats that evade existing controls; and b. Employ the threat hunting capability organization-defined frequency.

Source: NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5, RA-10. 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

Audit records/event logs · SIEM / log platform

periodic reviewEvidence produced at each review

Assessment reports · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Test of Organizational processes for assessments and audits; mechanisms/tools supporting and/or implementing threat hunting capabilities · Policy repository / GRC workspace

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

Risk assessment policy · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Threat hunting capability · Policy repository / GRC workspace
System 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

No cyber threat hunting capability has been established
Threat hunting is not performed at the organization-defined frequency

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

RA-9 Criticality Analysis · SA-1 Policy and Procedures