NIST 800-53 REV 5 • CONTINGENCY PLANNING
CP-4(3) — Automated Testing
Test the contingency plan using {{ insert: param, cp-04.03_odp }}.
CMMC Practice Mapping
No direct CMMC mapping
NIST 800-171 Mapping
No direct NIST 800-171 mapping
Related Controls
No related controls listed
Supplemental Guidance
Automated mechanisms facilitate thorough and effective testing of contingency plans by providing more complete coverage of contingency issues, selecting more realistic test scenarios and environments, and effectively stressing the system and supported mission and business functions.
Practitioner Notes
This enhancement requires automated testing of your contingency plan — using tools to regularly validate that recovery mechanisms work without waiting for annual manual tests.
Example 1: Configure Azure Site Recovery to run automated test failovers monthly, generating reports that confirm virtual machines can be successfully recovered at the secondary site.
Example 2: Use Veeam SureBackup to automatically verify backup integrity by booting backed-up VMs in an isolated environment and running health checks nightly.