What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on SA-5 System Documentation?

System and services acquisition policy; System and services acquisition procedures; Procedures addressing system documentation; System documentation, including administrator and user guides; System design documentation; Records documenting attempts to obtain unavailable or nonexistent system documentation.

What is the most common gap auditors find on SA-5?

Administrator documentation for secure configuration, installation and known privileged-function vulnerabilities was never obtained or developed

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

`SA-5` System Documentation

a. Obtain or develop administrator documentation for the system, system component, or system service that describes: 1. Secure configuration, installation, and operation of the system, component, or service; 2. Effective use and maintenance of security and privacy functions and mechanisms; and 3. Known vulnerabilities regarding configuration and use of administrative or privileged functions; b. Obtain or develop user documentation for the system, system component, or system service that describes: 1. User-accessible security and privacy functions and mechanisms and how to effectively use those functions and mechanisms; 2. Methods for user interaction, which enables individuals to use the system, component, or service in a more secure manner and protect individual privacy; and 3. User responsibilities in maintaining the security of the system, component, or service and privacy of individuals; c. Document attempts to obtain system, system component, or system service documentation when such documentation is either unavailable or nonexistent and take organization-defined actions in response; and d. Distribute documentation to organization-defined personnel or roles.

Source: NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5, SA-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

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

Records documenting attempts to obtain unavailable or nonexistent system documentation · Document repository
Test of Organizational processes for obtaining, protecting, and distributing system administrator and user documentation · Document repository

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 system documentation · Policy repository / GRC workspace
System documentation, including administrator and user guides · Document repository
System design documentation · Document repository
List of actions to be taken in response to documented attempts to obtain system, system component, or system service documentation · Document repository
Risk management strategy documentation · Document repository
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

Administrator documentation for secure configuration, installation and known privileged-function vulnerabilities was never obtained or developed
Where vendor documentation is unavailable, attempts to obtain it and compensating actions are not documented

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-4(12) Acquisition Process | Data Ownership · SA-8 Security and Privacy Engineering Principles