What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on SA-3 System Development Life Cycle?

System and services acquisition policy; System and services acquisition procedures; Procedures addressing the integration of information security and privacy and supply chain risk management into the system development life cycle process; System development life cycle documentation; Organizational risk management strategy; Information security and privacy risk management strategy documentation.

What is the most common gap auditors find on SA-3?

The organization-defined system development life cycle does not incorporate security and privacy considerations at each stage

NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5 · SA - System and Services Acquisition

`SA-3` System Development Life Cycle

a. Acquire, develop, and manage the system using organization-defined system development life cycle that incorporates information security and privacy considerations; b. Define and document information security and privacy roles and responsibilities throughout the system development life cycle; c. Identify individuals having information security and privacy roles and responsibilities; and d. Integrate the organizational information security and privacy risk management process into system development life cycle activities.

Source: NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5, SA-3. 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 defining and documenting the system development life cycle; organizational processes for identifying system development life cycle roles and responsibilities; organizational processes for integrating information security and privacy and supply chain risk management into · Identity provider / directory

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

System and services acquisition policy · Policy repository / GRC workspace
System and services acquisition procedures · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Procedures addressing the integration of information security and privacy and supply chain risk management into the system development life cycle process · Policy repository / GRC workspace
System development life cycle documentation · Document repository
Organizational risk management strategy · Document repository
Information security and privacy risk management strategy documentation · Policy repository / GRC workspace
System security plan · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Privacy plan · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Privacy program 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 development life cycle does not incorporate security and privacy considerations at each stage
Individuals holding security and privacy roles across the development life cycle are not identified by name

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

SA-2 Allocation of Resources · SA-3(1) System Development Life Cycle | Manage Preproduction Environment