What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on RV.2.1 Assess, Prioritize, and Remediate Vulnerabilities?

Vulnerability SLA matrix by severity; Remediation tracker with aging report; Exception process for accepted risk; Executive view of overdue vulnerabilities.

What is the most common gap auditors find on RV.2.1?

SLAs defined but routinely missed without escalation

NIST SP 800-218 (SSDF) · Respond to Vulnerabilities

`RV.2.1` Assess, Prioritize, and Remediate Vulnerabilities

Assess each vulnerability against business risk, exploitability, and customer impact, then prioritize remediation accordingly. Track remediation against agreed service level objectives by severity.

Source: NIST SP 800-218 (SSDF), RV.2.1. 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

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

none for this control

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

Vulnerability SLA matrix by severity · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Remediation tracker with aging report · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Exception process for accepted risk · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Executive view of overdue vulnerabilities · 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

SLAs defined but routinely missed without escalation
exceptions never expire
no visibility into customer exposure when prioritizing

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

RV.1.3 Vulnerability Disclosure Policy · RV.2.2 Develop and Implement Remediation Plans