ac-5-separation-of-duties

name	AC-5_separation-of-duties
description	Identify and document [organization-defined] ;
category	authorization
version	5.2.0
author	cyberstrike-official
tags	["nist","sp800-53","rev5","ac-5","ac"]
tech_stack	["aws","azure","gcp","linux","windows"]
cwe_ids	["CWE-284"]
chains_with	["AC-2","AC-3","AC-6","AU-9","CM-5","CM-11","CP-9","IA-2","IA-4","IA-5"]
prerequisites	[]
severity_boost	{"AC-2":"Chain with AC-2 for comprehensive security coverage","AC-3":"Chain with AC-3 for comprehensive security coverage","AC-6":"Chain with AC-6 for comprehensive security coverage"}

AC-5 Separation of Duties

High-Level Description

Family: Access Control (AC) Framework: NIST SP 800-53 Rev 5

Separation of duties addresses the potential for abuse of authorized privileges and helps to reduce the risk of malevolent activity without collusion. Separation of duties includes dividing mission or business functions and support functions among different individuals or roles, conducting system support functions with different individuals, and ensuring that security personnel who administer access control functions do not also administer audit functions. Because separation of duty violations can span systems and application domains, organizations consider the entirety of systems and system components when developing policy on separation of duties. Separation of duties is enforced through the account management activities in AC-2 , access control mechanisms in AC-3 , and identity management activities in IA-2, IA-4 , and IA-12.

What to Check

• Verify AC-5 Separation of Duties is documented in SSP
• Validate all 2 control requirements are implemented
• Confirm control is operating effectively
• Review evidence of continuous monitoring for AC-5

How to Test

Step 1: Review Documentation

Examine the System Security Plan (SSP) and related artifacts for AC-5 implementation details. Verify the organization has documented how this control is satisfied.

Step 2: Validate Implementation

# For cloud environments, use cloud-audit-mcp tools
# For on-premises, review system configurations directly

# Example: Check if account management policies exist
grep -r "account.management\|access.control" /etc/security/ 2>/dev/null

Step 3: Test Operating Effectiveness

Verify the control is actively functioning, not just documented. Check logs, configurations, and operational evidence.

Tools

Tool	Purpose	Usage
cloud-audit-mcp	Check IAM policies and access controls	cloud_audit_iam_policies
hackbrowser-mcp	Test web application access controls	browser_auth_test