Achieving compliance with NIST 800-53 is no small feat. Whether your organization is required to adhere to it for FISMA, FedRAMP, or other federal standards, implementing the necessary security and privacy requirements is a time-intensive process. But NIST 800-53 compliance isn’t just about passing an assessment, it’s about maintaining a strong security and compliance posture over time.

The problem is many organizations still take a reactive approach to maintaining compliance, scrambling to address gaps only when an audit or assessment is approaching. This leads to unnecessary stress, inefficiencies, and potential risks that could have been identified and mitigated earlier. 

A compliance automation platform can help shift your strategy from point-in-time compliance checks to proactive, continuous monitoring, saving time, reducing manual effort, and helping you avoid surprises before your next assessment.

Continuous monitoring for proactive compliance

One of the biggest challenges of maintaining compliance with NIST 800-53 is keeping up with evolving risks, misconfigurations, and control failures. A compliance automation platform like Secureframe integrates with your tech stack, including AWS GovCloud, to continuously monitor security controls, ensuring that deviations from compliance requirements are detected immediately rather than months later. This allows your team to remediate issues promptly before they become compliance violations or exploited vulnerabilities.

For example, automated evidence collection streamlines compliance workflows by pulling audit logs, access control data, security configurations, and many more relevant audit evidence directly from your cloud environments and IT systems. Instead of manually gathering this data in the weeks leading up to an assessment, your organization can always be ready, knowing exactly where you stand at any given time.

AI-powered remediation and control validation

As your organization grows and evolves, so does your risk landscape. Whether it’s new infrastructure, employee onboarding, or changes in security policies, adjustments in your environment can lead to compliance drift. Secureframe’s AI-powered remediation tools can automatically detect failing controls and generate fixes as infrastructure-as-code, making it easy to apply corrections while maintaining security best practices.

Streamlined risk management and task assignments

Many organizations struggle with risk management because it requires tracking multiple assets, vulnerabilities, and third-party relationships. A compliance platform like Secureframe helps centralize risk management internally and for third-party vendors by maintaining a live risk register, linking risks to specific controls, and providing dashboards for real-time risk visibility.

Tasks can also be automatically assigned to control owners with clear due dates, ensuring that misconfigurations or policy updates are addressed promptly. Secureframe’s integrations with ticketing tools like Jira, ServiceNow, Microsoft Teams, and ClickUp help keep compliance tasks on track, while automated alerts notify relevant teams of security issues before they escalate.

Simplified vendor and employee onboarding

Ensuring that employees and vendors comply with security policies is another critical component of NIST 800-53 compliance. Automated workflows can streamline personnel onboarding by automatically enforcing security training, background checks, and policy and procedure acceptance. This not only saves administrative time but also ensures that all personnel understand and adhere to security and compliance protocols from day one.

Real-time compliance dashboards and reporting

Waiting until an audit to assess compliance status increases the risk of missing key requirements. A compliance automation platform provides real-time dashboards that offer an at-a-glance view of your compliance posture, including passing and failing controls, compliance gaps, and security risks.

Dashboards make it easy for CISOs, compliance teams, and other stakeholders to quickly understand compliance status, identify areas for improvement, and generate reports. This level of visibility eliminates guesswork and provides a structured approach to maintaining compliance over time.

Easier regulatory change management

NIST frameworks are regularly updated, and staying on top of regulatory changes can be challenging. Compliance automation platforms can help organizations stay ahead by automatically updating security requirements, notifying teams of necessary changes, and adjusting control mappings accordingly.

By leveraging automation, you can ensure ongoing alignment with NIST 800-53 and many other NIST frameworks without the burden of manually tracking framework updates and policy revisions.

The future is automated continuous compliance

Reactive, last-minute compliance checks are no longer sufficient in today’s security landscape. With automation, organizations can shift to a proactive approach, continuously monitoring and maintaining compliance with NIST 800-53 and dozens of other regulatory and industry frameworks. This not only streamlines assessments but also strengthens overall security posture, reducing risks and improving operational efficiency.

If you’re ready to move beyond point-in-time compliance checks, schedule a demo with our team to see how our automation platform can help.