What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on RA-5(5) Vulnerability Monitoring and Scanning | Privileged Access?

Risk assessment policy; Procedures addressing vulnerability scanning; System design documentation; System configuration settings and associated documentation; List of system components for vulnerability scanning; Personnel access authorization list.

What is the most common gap auditors find on RA-5(5)?

Vulnerability scans run unauthenticated, missing flaws that require privileged access to defined components to detect

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

`RA-5(5)` Vulnerability Monitoring and Scanning | Privileged Access

Implement privileged access authorization to organization-defined system components for organization-defined vulnerability scanning activities.

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

Access authorization records · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Test of Organizational processes for vulnerability scanning; organizational processes for access control; mechanisms supporting and/or implementing access control; mechanisms/tools supporting and/or implementing vulnerability scanning · Vulnerability scanner / patch tooling

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

Risk assessment policy · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Procedures addressing vulnerability scanning · Policy repository / GRC workspace
System design documentation · Policy repository / GRC workspace
System configuration settings and associated documentation · Policy repository / GRC workspace
List of system components for vulnerability scanning · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Personnel access authorization list · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Authorization credentials · 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

Vulnerability scans run unauthenticated, missing flaws that require privileged access to defined components to detect
Privileged credentials used for scanning are not authorized, scoped to scanning activities or controlled

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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