What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on SA-4(9) Acquisition Process | Functions, Ports, Protocols, and Services in Use?

System and services acquisition policy; Procedures addressing the integration of security requirements, descriptions, and criteria into the acquisition process; System design documentation; System documentation, including functions, ports, protocols, and services intended for organizational use; Acquisition contracts for systems or services; Acquisition documentation.

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

`SA-4(9)` Acquisition Process | Functions, Ports, Protocols, and Services in Use

Require the developer of the system, system component, or system service to identify the functions, ports, protocols, and services intended for organizational use.

Source: NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5, SA-4(9). 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

Document repository

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

none for this control

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

System and services acquisition policy · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Procedures addressing the integration of security requirements, descriptions, and criteria into the acquisition process · Policy repository / GRC workspace
System design documentation · Document repository
System documentation, including functions, ports, protocols, and services intended for organizational use · Document repository
Acquisition contracts for systems or services · Vendor register / contract repository
Acquisition documentation · Document repository
Solicitation documentation · Document repository
Service level agreements · Vendor register / contract repository
Organizational security requirements, descriptions, and criteria for developers of systems, system components, and system services · Document repository

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 developer did not identify the functions, ports, protocols and services intended for organizational use
Early lifecycle acquisition documents lack a developer-supplied list of ports and protocols to guide hardening

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

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