NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 AU-14(3) — Remote Viewing And Listening

What this control requires

Provides capability for authorized users to remotely view and hear user session content in real-time for monitoring purposes. This control supports the Remote Session Monitor capability within the Audit and Accountability family.

In plain English

Provides capability for authorized users to remotely view and hear user session content in real-time for monitoring purposes. In practice, this means you can prove you policy management-level controls on a defined cadence.

Why it matters

SP 800-53 is the catalogue every U.S. federal authorisation (FedRAMP, FISMA, CMMC) and most regulated industries point at. A missing control surfaces as a Plan of Action & Milestones (POA&M) item that an Authorizing Official must approve before the Authority To Operate is granted or renewed.

This control is rated high. Auditors expect a named owner, a remediation SLA, and a tooling artefact that evidences continuous operation.

What an auditor looks for

A 3PAO (FedRAMP) or Independent Assessor (NIST RMF) tests against NIST SP 800-53A assessment procedures. For each control they expect a documented implementation that addresses every assessment objective (Examine, Interview, Test) and an implementation summary in the System Security Plan.

Within Audit and Accountability, the assessor will trace your implementation back to the catalogue reference (Control AU-14(3)) and look for objective evidence on the latest two assessment cycles.

How to implement

Policy Management

Docs. Keep each policy in version-controlled Markdown alongside the code that implements it; ship a signed PDF snapshot at each annual review and link the SHA into the SoA.

Operational checklist

• Policy. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Audit. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Session. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Remote. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Content. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Scope: management, time, monitor, capability, content, accountability, authorized, policy.

Evidence to collect

• Policy Document. A signed and version-controlled policy / standard / procedure document.

Signed policy or standard documents the safeguard. Focus: Remote Viewing And Listening.

Common pitfalls

• Policies that no engineer has read; the version in Confluence drifts from the version that's actually being enforced.

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 3.3.3 — Audit Record Generation
• HIPAA (45 CFR Part 164) 164.310(d)(2)(iii) — Device and Media Controls - Accountability
• SOC 2 (2017 TSC) CC4.1 — Control Monitoring
• BSI C5:2020 SP-01 — Documentation, communication and provision of policies and instructions

Related controls in NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5

• Control AU-14 — Session Audit
• Control AU-13 — Monitoring For Information Disclosure
• Control AU-14(1) — System Start-Up
• Control AU-12 — Audit Record Generation
• Control AU-12(1) — System-Wide And Time-Correlated Audit Trail
• Control AU-12(3) — Changes By Authorized Individuals

References

• NIST Computer Security Resource Center — NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5
• Catalogue identifier: Control AU-14(3)

Topics: governance riskcontinuous monitoringpolicy management