TheArtOfService
UK Cyber EssentialsNIST SP 800-53 Rev 5

UK Cyber Essentials covers 6.3% of NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5

19 of the 300 controls in NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5 are already satisfied by evidence you collected for UK Cyber Essentials. 281 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.

6.3%
of the target already covered
19
controls evidenced
281
genuine gaps
0
claims rejected in review

This number is directional. It says how much of NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5 your UK Cyber Essentials 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.

57 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 Management6 of 14 evidenced, 8 to do
IA - Identification and Authentication3 of 13 evidenced, 10 to do
AC - Access Control4 of 23 evidenced, 19 to do
MA - Maintenance1 of 7 evidenced, 6 to do
SI - System and Information Integrity2 of 22 evidenced, 20 to do
SA - System and Services Acquisition1 of 17 evidenced, 16 to do
PE - Physical and Environmental Protection1 of 22 evidenced, 21 to do
SC - System and Communications Protection1 of 47 evidenced, 46 to do
AT - Awareness and Training0 of 5 evidenced, 5 to do
AU - Audit and Accountability0 of 15 evidenced, 15 to do
CA - Assessment, Authorization, and Monitoring0 of 8 evidenced, 8 to do
CP - Contingency Planning0 of 12 evidenced, 12 to do
IR - Incident Response0 of 9 evidenced, 9 to do
MP - Media Protection0 of 8 evidenced, 8 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
RA - Risk Assessment0 of 9 evidenced, 9 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.

CE-AC.4NIST800-AC-2argued against and upheld
Account management

Both require privileged account types approved and tracked through their life.

CE-AC.3NIST800-AC-2argued against and upheld
Account management

Both require accounts disabled or removed when no longer required.

CE-AC.1NIST800-AC-2argued against and upheld
Account management

Both require account creation to follow a documented authorisation and approval step.

CE-AC.4NIST800-AC-3argued against and upheld
Access enforcement

Both require the system to enforce only the privileges that were approved.

CE-AC.2NIST800-AC-3argued against and upheld
Access enforcement

Both require the system to authenticate the account before granting access.

CE-AC.6NIST800-AC-6argued against and upheld
Least privilege

Both require periodic review and removal of privileges no longer justified.

CE-AC.5NIST800-AC-6argued against and upheld
Least privilege

Both require routine work performed under a non-privileged account.

CE-AC.4NIST800-AC-6argued against and upheld
Least privilege

Both restrict privilege grants to what an approved role actually 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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