15.6·medium·Component: DetectWhat this control requires
Monitor service providers consistent with the enterprise's service provider management policy. Monitoring may include periodic reassessment of service provider compliance, monitoring service provider release notes, and dark web monitoring.
In plain English
Monitor service providers consistent with the enterprise's service provider management policy. In practice, this means you can prove you monitor service-level controls on a defined cadence.
Why it matters
The CIS Controls are an industry-vetted, prioritised defence: skipping a safeguard widens the attack surface that the safeguards above and below it assume is closed. Audit frameworks (FedRAMP, PCI DSS, HIPAA) all cite CIS as evidence of due care.
What an auditor looks for
A CIS-aligned reviewer wants to see (a) which Implementation Group you are targeting, (b) a documented owner for the safeguard, and (c) a tooling or process artefact (config, scan output, ticket) that proves the safeguard runs on the cadence the control demands.
Within Detect, the assessor will trace your implementation back to the catalogue reference (Control 15.6) and look for objective evidence on the latest two assessment cycles.
How to implement
Logging Monitoring
AWS. Org-trail CloudTrail to a central log archive account, GuardDuty in every region, and Security Hub for cross-source correlation.
Azure. Pipe every diagnostic setting into a central Log Analytics workspace; onboard Microsoft Sentinel for SIEM/SOAR.
GCP. Aggregate audit logs in a dedicated logging project with sink to BigQuery; enable Security Command Center Premium and route findings to Chronicle SIEM.
Operational checklist
- Monitor. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
- Scope: service, service provider management policy, service providers, enterprise.
Evidence to collect
- Vendor Risk Management.
vendor_risk_managementevidence - Infra Scan. Continuous infrastructure-posture telemetry — AWS Config, Azure Policy compliance, GCP Organisation Policy, Wiz / Prisma findings.
Third-party risk management evidence (assessments, contracts, due diligence) shows supplier oversight. Focus: Monitor Service Providers.
Common pitfalls
- Per-account logging that nobody stitches together at the org level — incidents that cross accounts go undetected for days.
How it maps to other frameworks
Computed from shared tags, control component and key-operation subjects — handy when you are reconciling controls across an audit.
- NIST SP 800-171 Rev. 3 3.16.3 — External System Services
- NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 SA-5(2) — Security-Relevant External System Interfaces
- BSI C5:2020 SSO-01 — Policies and instructions for controlling and monitoring third parties
- ISO/IEC 27001:2022 A.8.30 — Outsourced development
- SOC 2 (2017 TSC) CC9.2 — Vendor Risk Management
Related controls in CIS Controls v8
- Control 15.2 — Establish and Maintain a Service Provider Management Policy
- Control 15.1 — Establish and Maintain an Inventory of Service Providers
- Control 3.8 — Document Data Flows
- Control 15.5 — Assess Service Providers
- Control 13.1 — Centralize Security Event Alerting
- Control 15.4 — Ensure Service Provider Contracts Include Security Requirements
References
- Center for Internet Security — CIS Controls v8
- Catalogue identifier:
Control 15.6
Topics: governance riskvendor riskvendor managementsupply chain securitycontinuous monitoringlogging monitoring