ID.SC-5: Supply Chain Response and Recovery Testing
Supply chain vulnerabilities can cascade into enterprise-wide breaches if your vendors and third-party providers aren't prepared. NIST ID.SC-5 requires you to develop and test response and recovery plans collaboratively with suppliers—ensuring your entire ecosystem can recover from incidents. This control transforms vendor relationships from transactional to resilient partnerships.
What this means
ID.SC-5 mandates that organizations establish, document, and regularly test response and recovery procedures alongside their suppliers and critical third-party providers. This means moving beyond one-way vendor assessments to active joint testing that validates both your ability and your partners' capability to respond to and recover from cybersecurity incidents. The control recognizes that modern supply chains are interconnected—a breach at a vendor can impact your operations, making their readiness your responsibility.
How to comply
- 1.Identify critical suppliers and third-party providers whose systems touch your organization's data or operations
- 2.Develop joint response and recovery plans that clarify roles, communication protocols, and escalation procedures for each vendor relationship
- 3.Schedule and conduct tabletop exercises or simulations with suppliers at least annually to test plan effectiveness
- 4.Document test results, including identified gaps, timeline to resolution, and updated procedures based on findings
- 5.Establish service level agreements (SLAs) that include recovery time objectives (RTOs) and recovery point objectives (RPOs) for each vendor
- 6.Create a vendor testing calendar and track completion to ensure no critical supplier is missed
- 7.Share anonymized lessons learned across your supply chain to improve industry-wide resilience
Evidence auditors look for
- Joint incident response plan templates signed by vendor stakeholders with defined communication trees and escalation contacts
- Supply chain tabletop exercise agendas, participant rosters, and documented outcomes showing what was tested
- Recovery testing logs showing date, vendor name, scenario tested, duration, and identified improvement actions
- Vendor SLA documents that specify RTO/RPO commitments and response time expectations for critical services
- After-action reports from supply chain drills detailing performance against objectives and corrective actions assigned
- Email threads or meeting minutes confirming vendor participation in testing activities and plan updates
- Spreadsheet tracking supply chain recovery test schedules and completion status across all critical vendors
Frequently asked questions
When will FAQs be available?
The FAQ for this control is currently being prepared.
GRCWatch automates supply chain test scheduling, tracks vendor participation across all critical suppliers, and generates compliance-ready evidence reports that consolidate tabletop results, SLA metrics, and remediation status—so you spend less time chasing vendors for test proof and more time strengthening your ecosystem's actual resilience.
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