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

SA-9(1) External System Services | Risk Assessments and Organizational Approvals

(a) Conduct an organizational assessment of risk prior to the acquisition or outsourcing of information security services; and (b) Verify that the acquisition or outsourcing of dedicated information security services is approved by organization-defined personnel or roles.

Source: NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5, SA-9(1). 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.

10
artefacts
0
held by a system
3
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

  • Risk assessment reports · Policy repository / GRC workspace
  • Approval records for the acquisition or outsourcing of dedicated security services · Vendor register / contract repository
  • Test of Organizational processes for conducting a risk assessment prior to acquiring or outsourcing dedicated security services; organizational processes for approving the outsourcing of dedicated security services; mechanisms supporting and/or implementing risk assessment; mechanisms supporting and/or impl · Vendor register / contract repository

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

  • System and services acquisition policy · Policy repository / GRC workspace
  • Supply chain risk management policy and procedures · Policy repository / GRC workspace
  • Procedures addressing external system services · Policy repository / GRC workspace
  • Acquisition documentation · Document repository
  • Acquisition contracts for the system, system component, or system service · Vendor register / contract repository
  • System security plan · Policy repository / GRC workspace
  • Supply chain risk management 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

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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SA-9 External System Services · SA-9(2) External System Services | Identification of Functions, Ports, Protocols, and Services