Getting compliant with NIST 800-53 is a major undertaking. Achieving and maintaining compliance without the right tools often means juggling spreadsheets and dozens of policy and procedure documents. And if you’ve ever tried to manually track security controls, gather evidence, and map requirements across different systems, you know how complex and time-consuming it can be. 

But many of these manual processes can be automated, eliminating manual overhead and ensuring that compliance isn’t a one-time effort but a continuous, well-managed process. Below, we’ll explain how automation makes NIST 800-53 compliance faster, easier, and far less stressful.

The traditional path to NIST 800-53 compliance

NIST 800-53 compliance typically involves implementing and managing hundreds of security controls, each with detailed documentation, testing, and ongoing monitoring requirements. This means conducting a gap assessment to understand where your security controls stand, drafting policies and procedures to address every requirement, collecting and organizing evidence to demonstrate compliance, performing periodic security assessments and control testing, and maintaining continuous monitoring, incident response plans, and many more documents.

For many organizations, this process is incredibly resource intensive. It requires dedicated security personnel with deep knowledge of NIST frameworks, with hundreds of hours dedicated to control selection and implementation, continuous monitoring and remediation, and policy, procedure, system security plan (SSP) and document maintenance. 

On average, achieving NIST 800-53 compliance can take anywhere from 12 to 18 months, depending on the organization’s size and complexity. Associated costs can be significant as well, with many organizations spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on consultant fees, compliance personnel, and continuous monitoring infrastructure. A full compliance initiative can easily cost $250,000 to $500,000 or more, particularly for organizations that need to implement new security controls, update IT infrastructure, and perform regular security audits.

Automating compliance doesn’t just save time, it transforms the way teams approach security and compliance altogether. By leveraging automation tools, organizations can significantly cut down the time to compliance, reduce the need for manual labor, and lower overall costs associated with maintaining compliance over time.

Can you automate NIST 800-53 compliance? Key benefits of compliance automation

Compliance automation platforms streamline NIST 800-53 compliance tasks by reducing manual workloads, improving accuracy, and ensuring real-time visibility into compliance status. 

By leveraging automation, organizations can eliminate inefficiencies, proactively manage risk, and simplify reporting, ultimately making compliance a more strategic and sustainable part of their security program. 

Let’s explore the key benefits of automating NIST 800-53 compliance and how it transforms the way organizations approach security and governance.

Reducing time and costs

Manually maintaining NIST 800-53 compliance can quickly become a drain on both time and financial resources. Organizations often spend hundreds of hours developing security documentation, implementing necessary controls, and preparing for audits and assessments. 

Compliance automation streamlines this process by automatically generating policy and procedure templates that align with NIST 800-53 requirements, automatically monitoring control performance to identify gaps, and continuously tracking compliance status to prevent last-minute scrambles before an audit. Rather than hiring additional personnel or consultants to handle these tasks, automation allows teams to focus on higher-priority security initiatives that drive long-term resilience and operational efficiency.

Continuous monitoring and alerts

Compliance isn’t a one-and-done project, it requires ongoing monitoring to ensure security controls remain effective over time. Automation platforms continuously monitor security controls and configurations and alert teams to misconfigurations or compliance drift. 

With real-time dashboards offering complete visibility into compliance status, security teams can address issues proactively rather than waiting until an audit uncovers deficiencies. This reduces risk and ensures compliance remains an active, well-managed process rather than a reactive, stressful effort.

Automated evidence collection and compliance reporting

Gathering evidence for an audit is one of the most tedious and time-consuming aspects of maintaining compliance. Without automation, organizations must manually collect logs, configuration data, and access control records, often leading to errors, delays, and unnecessary back-and-forth with assessors. 

Automation platforms integrate directly with your tech stack to automatically gather compliance evidence in a centralized repository. Evidence is mapped directly to NIST 800-53 controls and framework requirements, making the assessment process more efficient and eliminating the need for last-minute document scrambles.

Streamlined risk management

Risk assessments are a critical part of NIST 800-53 compliance, but performing them manually can lead to errors and inconsistencies. Secureframe uses AI-powered risk assessment workflows to identify high-priority risks, recommend mitigation strategies, and ensure a proactive and consistent approach to security. 

By continuously monitoring and assessing risks, organizations can implement remediation plans faster and with greater accuracy. Instead of reacting to threats as they arise, compliance automation enables teams to stay ahead of potential vulnerabilities and maintain a stronger security and compliance posture over time.

Simplified compliance across frameworks

For organizations that need to comply with multiple security frameworks, automation makes cross-framework compliance significantly more manageable. NIST 800-53 shares many requirements with other standards like NIST 800-171, CMMC, FedRAMP, TX-RAMP, and CJIS. 

Instead of treating each framework as a separate compliance initiative, automation platforms like Secureframe map existing security controls across multiple frameworks, reducing redundant work and making long-term compliance efforts more efficient and scalable.

What can’t be automated for NIST 800-53?

Automation can significantly streamline NIST 800-53 compliance, but not every aspect of compliance can (or should) be fully automated. Certain aspects still require human expertise, judgment, and oversight. 

For example, security awareness training can be delivered through automated platforms, but fostering a strong security culture requires leadership engagement and reinforcement beyond just watching training videos. 

Customization and policy reviews is another area where automation has limitations. While policy templates and best-practice recommendations can speed up policy creation, security policies and risk management strategies must be tailored to the specific needs and risks of your organization. Security meetings, change management reviews, and approval processes similarly require human participation, as effective decision-making often hinges on context, nuance, and judgment calls. No automation tool can fully replace the insight of security teams when it comes to aligning policies with operational realities and business objectives.

The compliance assessment and audit process also can’t be entirely automated. Automated tools can gather evidence, track compliance status, and even map controls to audit requirements, but external assessors must still perform manual reviews, conduct interviews, and validate that controls are operating effectively. Some compliance requirements are inherently subjective, and human judgment is necessary to assess whether an organization is meeting them appropriately.

Should you invest in compliance automation? How to choose the right platform

Compliance management tools can be a game-changer for organizations handling NIST 800-53 requirements, but how do you know when it’s time to invest in one? If your organization faces any of the following challenges, a compliance automation platform could significantly improve your efficiency and readiness:

• You work with federal agencies or government contractors that require adherence to NIST 800-53 controls.
• You plan to pursue contracts that mandate NIST 800-53 compliance, such as FedRAMP, FISMA, or DoD-related projects.
• Your team spends excessive time on manual evidence collection, control implementation, and continuous monitoring, diverting resources from core security initiatives.
• Compliance issues often surface right before or during an audit, leading to last-minute scrambles to address gaps.
• You want to ensure ongoing compliance as NIST 800-53 updates requirements, your IT environment evolves, or your organization scales.
• If you need to comply with NIST 800-53 and other overlapping frameworks such as CMMC, NIST 800-171, and others, a compliance automation tool will help make these efforts more efficient.

If any of these resonate, automating your NIST 800-53 compliance efforts can help reduce overhead, improve audit preparedness, and strengthen your overall security posture.

Essential compliance automation features to look for

The security, privacy, and compliance software landscape is a fast-growing space, with an increasing number of vendors to choose from. Finding the right fit for your organization requires asking the right questions:

• Does it fully support NIST 800-53 and other frameworks you need? Look for platforms that offer the full set of NIST 800-53 low, moderate, and high baseline controls as well as cross-mapping to frameworks like NIST 800-171, CMMC, and FedRAMP.
• Does it provide dashboards with real-time security and compliance visibility? The platform should offer centralized, real-time tracking of compliance status, risks, and outstanding tasks to help teams proactively address issues before an audit.
• Can the platform scale with my organization as compliance requirements evolve? Ensure the solution can adapt as your organization grows, whether that means supporting new frameworks, integrating with evolving tech stacks, or handling increased compliance complexity.
• How customizable are the workflows, reporting, and automation rules? Flexibility is key. The right platform should allow you to tailor controls, tests, and frameworks to match your specific operational and compliance needs. 

Beyond these considerations, certain key features can make the difference between a solution that simply reduces workload and one that transforms the entire compliance process. The right tool should go beyond basic automation to provide continuous monitoring, streamlined evidence collection, expert support, seamless integrations, and comprehensive risk management.

Continuous monitoring and alerts

Compliance doesn’t stop once you implement security controls—maintaining compliance requires ongoing monitoring and rapid response to emerging risks. A strong automation platform continuously tracks system configurations, security settings, and control performance. It should provide real-time alerts for misconfigurations, compliance drift, and security issues, ensuring you can resolve problems before they become audit failures. Some tools even offer built-in remediation guidance, making it easier to fix non-compliant controls quickly and efficiently.

Automated evidence collection and reporting

Preparing for an audit is often one of the most time-consuming aspects of compliance. Automation simplifies this process by integrating directly with your security stack to collect logs, configurations, and access control records. A robust platform should centralize all compliance data, generate audit-ready reports, and map evidence directly to NIST 800-53 controls. This eliminates the need for manual data gathering and reduces the back-and-forth between internal teams and auditors, making the audit process more efficient and less stressful.

Expert support for compliance and security challenges

Even the most advanced automation tools can’t replace human expertise. Compliance is complex, and having access to experienced security professionals can make all the difference. The best platforms offer support from former auditors and compliance experts who can guide you through assessments, answer technical questions, and provide strategic security advice. Whether you’re implementing controls for the first time or preparing for an external audit, expert support ensures you’re on the right track and reduces the risk of compliance missteps.

Seamless integrations with your tech stack

A compliance automation platform should integrate seamlessly with the tools and systems you already use. Look for a solution that connects with cloud environments, endpoint security solutions, identity management tools, and SIEM platforms. The breadth and depth of integrations matter — the ideal platform should go beyond pulling surface-level user data and instead provide real-time insights into device security, system configurations, and other critical security metrics. Deep integrations ensure a more comprehensive compliance posture and reduce the manual effort required to track security controls.

Comprehensive policy and document management

Compliance frameworks require extensive documentation, from security policies to risk mitigation plans. Managing this manually is tedious and prone to errors. The right automation tool should offer a library of pre-vetted policy, procedure, and system security plan (SSP) templates aligned with NIST 800-53 controls, along with features for tracking policy updates, approvals, and employee acknowledgments. Advanced platforms also enable version control and provide dashboards to monitor policy acceptance across the organization, making document management far more efficient.

Third-party and risk management

Effectively managing third-party risk is critical to NIST 800-53 compliance—but traditional manual methods are often inconsistent, reactive, and difficult to scale. Organizations today depend heavily on vendors, suppliers, and service providers, each of which introduces unique cybersecurity risks. A robust compliance automation platform should offer continuous monitoring of third-party risks by tracking vendor compliance status, security certifications, and security ratings from a centralized dashboard. This visibility helps teams quickly identify vulnerabilities or compliance gaps across their vendor ecosystem and take action before issues escalate.

By leveraging automation to streamline vendor assessments and compliance tracking, organizations can significantly reduce the manual workload associated with third-party risk management, improve their security posture, and maintain audit readiness—all without adding complexity to their compliance processes.

By focusing on these key features, organizations can ensure they invest in a compliance automation platform that not only reduces manual workload but also enhances security, improves audit readiness, and simplifies long-term compliance management.

Automation makes compliance manageable

For many organizations staying compliant with NIST 800-53 is critical, but it shouldn’t overwhelm your team. Compliance automation platforms streamline security processes, reduce manual effort, and ensure continuous compliance with far less stress. Instead of dedicating valuable time and resources to manual evidence collection, control implementation, and monitoring, automation allows security teams to stay ahead of compliance requirements without sacrificing operational efficiency.

Adyton, a defense tech company that provides mobile-first solutions for the U.S. Navy, Army, and National Guard, faced significant challenges maintaining NIST 800-53 compliance with a lean team. Before implementing automation, compliance tasks were consuming excessive time and effort, particularly for their lead InfoSec analyst and compliance subject matter expert, Gordon Young. By adopting Secureframe, Adyton cut compliance-related effort by 50-70%, eliminating the need to hire additional compliance personnel and ensuring continuous monitoring without the burden of manual processes.

For Director of Operations Stephanie Castro, the ability to automate evidence collection, control adherence, and compliance monitoring was invaluable. Instead of scrambling to meet compliance requirements or relying on fragmented manual processes, automation gave her team a scalable, efficient, and cost-effective solution to maintain compliance with DoD security standards.

If your team is spending too much time on compliance tasks or struggling to keep up with evolving security requirements, it might be time to explore compliance automation. The right platform reduces frustration, lowers costs, and strengthens your security posture.