ACSC Essential EightNIST SP 800-53 Rev 5

ACSC Essential Eight covers 6.7% of NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5

20 of the 300 controls in NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5 are already satisfied by evidence you collected for ACSC Essential Eight. 280 are genuine gaps. Every claim below was judged against both control sets and then argued against; the ones that did not survive are published further down with the reason each failed.

6.7%
of the target already covered
20
controls evidenced
280
genuine gaps
0
claims rejected in review

This number is directional. It says how much of NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5 your ACSC Essential Eight evidence satisfies. The reverse pair is a different number, often very different, because a security standard has enormous depth for access control and almost none for lawful basis or data subject rights.

52 candidate mappings were examined and 0 were removed. Signed off 2026-08-19, review level machine verified. Mappings were judged by Claude Code rather than read line by line by a practitioner. Every claim shows its reasoning so you can check it. Ask and a practitioner will review this pair.

Where the gaps are

Coverage is never evenly spread. A source standard usually satisfies one part of a target almost completely and barely touches another, and which part is which is the thing worth knowing before you plan the work.

CM - Configuration Management4 of 14 evidenced, 10 to do
CP - Contingency Planning3 of 12 evidenced, 9 to do
IA - Identification and Authentication3 of 13 evidenced, 10 to do
AU - Audit and Accountability3 of 15 evidenced, 12 to do
SI - System and Information Integrity3 of 22 evidenced, 19 to do
IR - Incident Response1 of 9 evidenced, 8 to do
RA - Risk Assessment1 of 9 evidenced, 8 to do
SA - System and Services Acquisition1 of 17 evidenced, 16 to do
AC - Access Control1 of 23 evidenced, 22 to do
AT - Awareness and Training0 of 5 evidenced, 5 to do
CA - Assessment, Authorization, and Monitoring0 of 8 evidenced, 8 to do
MA - Maintenance0 of 7 evidenced, 7 to do
MP - Media Protection0 of 8 evidenced, 8 to do
PE - Physical and Environmental Protection0 of 22 evidenced, 22 to do
PL - Planning0 of 8 evidenced, 8 to do
PM - Program Management0 of 32 evidenced, 32 to do
PS - Personnel Security0 of 9 evidenced, 9 to do
PT - PII Processing and Transparency0 of 8 evidenced, 8 to do
SC - System and Communications Protection0 of 47 evidenced, 47 to do
SR - Supply Chain Risk Management0 of 12 evidenced, 12 to do

Theme level, not control level, deliberately. The per-control list of what is evidenced and what is a gap is the report itself, so publishing it here would be publishing the thing being sold.

Claims that held

A sample. Each one names the control whose evidence does the work, the control it satisfies, and why.

E8-ADMIN-ML3NIST800-AC-6argued against and upheld
Least privilege

Privileged access for users and services is limited to only what their duties require.

E8-ADMIN-ML1NIST800-AC-6argued against and upheld
Least privilege

Privileged duties run under dedicated accounts barred from internet, email and unprivileged environments.

E8-ADMIN-ML2NIST800-AU-12argued against and upheld
Audit record generation

Privileged access and account management events are generated and centrally logged.

E8-UAH-ML3NIST800-AU-12argued against and upheld
Audit record generation

PowerShell module, script block and transcription logging is generated and centrally collected.

E8-APP-ML2NIST800-AU-12argued against and upheld
Audit record generation

Allowed and blocked application control events are generated and centrally logged.

E8-APP-ML3NIST800-AU-6argued against and upheld
Audit record review, analysis, and reporting

Event logs from servers and workstations are analysed in a timely manner to detect events.

E8-ADMIN-ML2NIST800-AU-9argued against and upheld
Protection of audit information

Event logs are protected from unauthorised modification and deletion.

E8-APP-ML2NIST800-CM-11argued against and upheld
User-installed software

Allowed and blocked events are centrally logged, giving the monitoring of compliance the control requires.

Claims that did not hold

Nothing proposed for this pair was rejected in review. That is unusual and worth knowing rather than hiding: it means the candidate set was small and every candidate held.

The full report

Everything above is a sample. The report is every evidenced control and every gap, with the reasoning and the source document behind each one, in a form you can hand to an assessor. $299, emailed immediately.

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