What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on PO.4.1 Criteria for Software Security?

Release security criteria document; Risk acceptance workflow; Release readiness review records; Metrics on releases with open critical findings.

What is the most common gap auditors find on PO.4.1?

release criteria exist but releases ship regardless of criteria

NIST SP 800-218 (SSDF) · Prepare the Organization

`PO.4.1` Criteria for Software Security

Define criteria for assessing the security characteristics of software before release. Tie criteria to risk and to customer commitments so that release decisions are explicit.

Source: NIST SP 800-218 (SSDF), PO.4.1. 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 800-218 (SSDF) in the compliance library.

artefacts

held by a system

at each review

moderate

to go live

Source control / CI pipeline

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

Metrics on releases with open critical findings · Source control / CI pipeline

periodic reviewEvidence produced at each review

Release readiness review records · Source control / CI pipeline

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

Release security criteria document · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Risk acceptance workflow · Policy repository / GRC workspace

First move

Start with the 1 of 4 artefacts that already live in a system (Source control / CI pipeline); keep the periodic reviews but log each one as a dated record with a named reviewer.

Common gaps auditors find

release criteria exist but releases ship regardless of criteria
no risk acceptance workflow tied to release
criteria not differentiated by product risk tier

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

PO.3.3 Toolchain Generates Security Artifacts · PO.4.2 Gather and Safeguard Security Check Information