Draft NIST Special Publication (SP) 800-53A, Revision 5, Assessing Security and Privacy Controls in Information Systems and Organizations, provides organizations with a flexible, scalable, and repeatable assessment methodology and assessment procedures that correspond with the controls in NIST SP 800-53, Revision 5. Like previous revisions of SP 800-53A, the generalized assessment procedures provide a framework and starting point to assess the enhanced security requirements and can be tailored to the needs of organizations and assessors. The assessment procedures can be employed in self-assessments or independent third-party assessments.

In addition to the update of the assessment procedures to correspond with the controls in SP 800-53, Revision 5, a new format for assessment procedures in this revision to SP 800-53A is introduced to:

• Improve the efficiency of conducting control assessments,
• Provide better traceability between assessment procedures and controls, and
• Better support the use of automated tools, continuous monitoring, and ongoing authorization programs.

NIST is seeking feedback on the assessment procedures in this publication and in electronic versions (OSCAL, CSV, and plain text), including the assessment objectives, determination statements, and potential assessment methods and objects. We are also interested in the approach taken to incorporate organization-defined parameters into the determination statements for the assessment objectives. To facilitate their review and use by a broad range of stakeholders, the assessment procedures are available for comment and use in PDF format, as well as comma-separated value (CSV), plain text, and Open Security Controls Assessment Language (OSCAL) formats.