Independent Assessment
LOW ✓ MODERATE ✓ HIGHRequirements NIST SOURCE
Employ independent assessors or assessment teams to monitor the controls in the system on an ongoing basis.
Discussion (NIST Supplemental Guidance)
Organizations maximize the value of control assessments by requiring that assessments be conducted by assessors with appropriate levels of independence. The level of required independence is based on organizational continuous monitoring strategies. Assessor independence provides a degree of impartiality to the monitoring process. To achieve such impartiality, assessors do not create a mutual or conflicting interest with the organizations where the assessments are being conducted, assess their own work, act as management or employees of the organizations they are serving, or place themselves in advocacy positions for the organizations acquiring their services.
Implementation Guidance
Original engineering commentary written for this explorer — not NIST source text and not authoritative guidance.
No engineering interpretation has been authored for CA-7(1) 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
Assessment Objectives
- independent assessors or assessment teams are employed to monitor the controls in the system on an ongoing basis.
Examine
[SELECT FROM: Assessment, authorization, and monitoring policy; organizational continuous monitoring strategy; system-level continuous monitoring strategy; procedures addressing continuous monitoring of system controls; control assessment report; plan of action and milestones; system monitoring records; impact analyses; status reports; system security plan; privacy plan; other relevant documents or records].
Interview
[SELECT FROM: Organizational personnel with continuous monitoring responsibilities; organizational personnel with information security and privacy responsibilities].
Overlays
STIGs & CCIs
No STIG checks or CCI mappings are currently loaded for CA-7(1). 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
Categorized from the SP 800-53A "Examine"/"Test" artifact list above by keyword — not an authoritative NIST evidence list.
Policy
- Assessment, authorization, and monitoring policy
- organizational continuous monitoring strategy
- system-level continuous monitoring strategy
- plan of action and milestones
- system security plan
- privacy plan
Other Records
- procedures addressing continuous monitoring of system controls
- control assessment report
- system monitoring records
- impact analyses
- status reports
- other relevant documents or records