03.03.06 — Audit Record Reduction and Report Generation

Official NIST requirement content

Security requirement

a.Implement an audit record reduction and report generation capability that supports audit record review, analysis, reporting requirements, and after-the-fact investigations of incidents.
b.Preserve the original content and time ordering of audit records.

Official NIST discussion

Discussion

Audit records are generated in 03.03.03. Audit record reduction and report generation occur after audit record generation. Audit record reduction is a process that manipulates collected audit information and organizes it in a summary format that is more meaningful to analysts. Audit record reduction and report generation capabilities do not always come from the same system or organizational entities that conduct auditing activities. An audit record reduction capability can include, for example, modern data mining techniques with advanced data filters to identify anomalous behavior in audit records. The report generation capability provided by the system can help generate customizable reports. The time ordering of audit records can be a significant issue if the granularity of the time stamp in the record is insufficient.

Bare Metal Cyber interpretation

Implementation perspective

Treat Audit Record Reduction and Report Generation as a CUI protection outcome that must be reflected in the system boundary, documented implementation, operational behavior, and assessment evidence. Pay particular attention to event selection, trustworthy logging, review, retention, and support for CUI investigations.

Confirm the requirement is in scope for the CUI system components, services, users, and external connections being assessed.
Resolve every organization-defined parameter through an approved governance and tailoring process.
Map each clause of the requirement to an accountable owner, implementation mechanism, and evidence source.
Verify that inherited and shared implementations are supported by current provider evidence and responsibility boundaries.
Collect evidence during normal operation and review changes, exceptions, and deficiencies on a risk-based cadence.

Questions to ask

Which CUI assets, data flows, users, and services are protected by this requirement?
Which portions are implemented locally, inherited, shared, or not applicable, and what evidence supports that determination?
Do the system security plan, deployed configuration, operating process, and assessment evidence tell the same story?
What change, incident, or threshold should trigger reassessment?

Evidence and validation

logging standards and event-selection decisions
sample audit records and retention settings
time synchronization evidence
alert review and investigation records

Common failure patterns

collecting logs without defined use cases
critical CUI events absent from the audit trail
retention shorter than investigative needs
logs modifiable by the same administrators being monitored

Official NIST SP 800-171A content

Assessment objectives and methods

Assessment objectives (6)

a.
an audit record reduction and report generation capability that supports audit record review is implemented.
a.
an audit record reduction and report generation capability that supports audit record analysis is implemented.
a.
an audit record reduction and report generation capability that supports audit record reporting requirements is implemented.
a.
an audit record reduction and report generation capability that supports after-the-fact investigations of incidents is implemented.
b.
the original content of audit records is preserved.
b.
the original time ordering of audit records is preserved.

Examine

audit and accountability policy and procedures
procedures for audit record reduction and report generation
audit record reduction, review, analysis, and reporting tools
system audit records
system design documentation
system configuration settings
system security plan
other relevant documents or records

Interview

personnel with audit record reduction and report generation responsibilities
personnel with information security responsibilities

Test

mechanisms for supporting audit record reduction and report generation capability

Official source-control relationships

Source NIST SP 800-53 controls

These controls are referenced by the official SP 800-171 Rev. 3 OSCAL record. Open the corresponding control pages for complete control text, enhancements, D3FEND mappings, and related learning.

Source controlAU-7Open SP 800-53 control →

Source record

Authoritative sources

Bare Metal Cyber is an independent educational publisher and is not affiliated with or endorsed by NIST. The official publications, the responsible federal agency, and the governing contract or agreement determine applicability, tailoring, assessment depth, and required implementation.