AU-11 AU · Audit and Accountability

Audit Record Retention

✓ LOW ✓ MODERATE ✓ HIGH
1 Enhancement 1 Overlay 9 Related Controls
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Requirements NIST SOURCE

Retain audit records for [time period] to provide support for after-the-fact investigations of incidents and to meet regulatory and organizational information retention requirements.

Discussion (NIST Supplemental Guidance)

Organizations retain audit records until it is determined that the records are no longer needed for administrative, legal, audit, or other operational purposes. This includes the retention and availability of audit records relative to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, subpoenas, and law enforcement actions. Organizations develop standard categories of audit records relative to such types of actions and standard response processes for each type of action. The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) General Records Schedules provide federal policy on records retention.

Enhancements NIST SOURCE

AU-11(1) Long-term Retrieval Capability LOW MODERATE HIGH

Employ [measures] to ensure that long-term audit records generated by the system can be retrieved.

Discussion

Organizations need to access and read audit records requiring long-term storage (on the order of years). Measures employed to help facilitate the retrieval of audit records include converting records to newer formats, retaining equipment capable of reading the records, and retaining the necessary documentation to help personnel understand how to interpret the records.

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Implementation Guidance

Engineering Interpretation

Original engineering commentary written for this explorer — not NIST source text and not authoritative guidance.

No engineering interpretation has been authored for AU-11 yet. This section is architected to receive it — see the Requirements and Assessment sections above for the authoritative NIST source content in the meantime.

Assessment

NIST SP 800-53A REV 5.2.0

Assessment Objectives

  1. a time period to retain audit records that is consistent with the records retention policy is defined;
  2. audit records are retained for <AU-11_ODP time period> to provide support for after-the-fact investigations of incidents and to meet regulatory and organizational information retention requirements.

Examine

[SELECT FROM: Audit and accountability policy; system security plan; privacy plan; audit record retention policy and procedures; security plan; organization-defined retention period for audit records; audit record archives; audit logs; audit records; other relevant documents or records].

Interview

[SELECT FROM: Organizational personnel with audit record retention responsibilities; organizational personnel with information security and privacy responsibilities; system/network administrators].

Overlays

OT/ICS Overlay SP 800-82r3

NIST SP 800-82r3 Appendix F, Table 22. Blank baseline means the control/control enhancement is not selected in that initial OT baseline.

LOW

  • Base control: Included (matches standard baseline)

MODERATE

  • Base control: Included (matches standard baseline)

HIGH

  • Base control: Included (matches standard baseline)

STIGs & CCIs

No STIG checks or CCI mappings are currently loaded for AU-11. This section is architected to display, per product: STIG ID, Finding ID, Severity, Title, Description, Check, Fix, CCI, and NIST control mapping — but nothing is populated here until a real DISA STIG/CCI dataset is ingested.

Learn more about STIG/CCI integration →

Evidence

Potential Evidence — Derived

Categorized from the SP 800-53A "Examine"/"Test" artifact list above by keyword — not an authoritative NIST evidence list.

Policy

  • Audit and accountability policy
  • system security plan
  • privacy plan
  • security plan

Logging

  • audit record retention policy and procedures
  • audit record archives

Other Records

  • organization-defined retention period for audit records
  • audit logs
  • audit records
  • other relevant documents or records