Certified Governance Risk and Compliance (CGRC) Practice Exam 2026 – All-in-One Guide to Master Your Certification!

The correct choice is NIST SP 800-53A, which serves as a valuable guideline for assessing and evaluating systems for compliance with specific security controls outlined in NIST SP 800-53. This document provides a comprehensive framework and methodology for assessing the effectiveness of security controls, making it essential for organizations to ensure they meet the required compliance objectives.

NIST SP 800-53 outlines the recommended security and privacy controls for federal information systems and organizations, but it is through NIST SP 800-53A that these guidelines are operationalized for evaluation and assessment purposes. The focus of this publication is on developing assessment plans, conducting the assessments, and documenting the results against the defined control objectives.

In contrast, while NIST SP 800-26 was designed to help organizations evaluate their IT security programs, it does not specifically guide compliance evaluations against the control objectives laid out in NIST SP 800-53. NIST SP 800-59 provides guidelines regarding baseline security controls but also does not focus exclusively on evaluations for compliance. Thus, NIST SP 800-53A is the essential resource for compliance evaluation against specified control objectives.