NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 AU-6(7) — Permitted Actions

What this control requires

Specifies permitted actions (e.g., read, write) for processes, roles, or users in audit record review, enforcing least privilege principles. This control supports the Audit Access Control System capability within the Audit and Accountability family.

In plain English

Specifies permitted actions (e.g., read, write) for processes, roles, or users in audit record review, enforcing least privilege principles. In practice, this means you can prove you access 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.

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-6(7)) 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

• Access. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Audit. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Least. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Review. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Privilege. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Scope: management, actions, access control, system, privilege, e, identity, review.

Evidence to collect

• Identity Scan. IAM / IdP exports — Entra ID, Okta, IAM Identity Center, Workspace directory — showing accounts, roles, MFA state and last sign-in.
• Policy Document. A signed and version-controlled policy / standard / procedure document.

Identity analytics (Okta, SailPoint, Access Analyzer) demonstrates least-privilege. Signed policy or standard documents the safeguard. Focus: Permitted Actions.

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.

• CIS Controls v8 6.8 — Define and Maintain Role-Based Access Control
• NIST SP 800-171 Rev. 3 3.1.6 — Least Privilege - Privileged Accounts
• ISO/IEC 27001:2022 A.5.18 — Access rights
• BSI C5:2020 PS-04 — Physical site access control
• India DPDP Act 2023 SE-002 — Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) & Least Privilege

Related controls in NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5

• Control AU-9(4) — Access By Subset Of Privileged Users
• Control AU-9(6) — Read-Only Access
• Control AU-16(1) — Identity Preservation
• Control AU-10(2) — Validate Binding Of Information Producer Identity
• Control AC-2(4) — Automated Audit Actions
• Control AU-10(1) — Association Of Identities

References

• NIST Computer Security Resource Center — NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5
• Catalogue identifier: Control AU-6(7)

Topics: governance riskidentity accessidentity managementaccess reviewprivileged accesslogging monitoring