NIST SP 800-218A

SSDF AI Supplement: AI-specific software development practices and supply chain controls.


Short name	218A
Region	Americas
Country or scope	United States
Sector	AI
In your workspace	On unless you switch it off in Compliance › Manage.

How Safeguard covers 218A

Scan requirements: 6, all decided by a scan.
Controls: the scan requirements below, plus 11 controls from Safeguard's control catalog for 218A.
Automated tests: none map to it directly. You can link any automated test to its controls yourself (how).
Policy templates: 25: 3 written for 218A and 22 from the standard set.

How each kind of coverage works, and what the readiness score counts: Compliance frameworks.

What a scan checks

Each scan of a product checks these 6 requirements against what the scan found, including the product's software inventory (SBOM).

Requirement	What Safeguard checks	Decided by
`SP800218A-PS.3.2` Provenance Data / SBOM	Provenance data for all components of each software release must be collected, safeguarded and shared, e.g. as an SBOM in a standard machine-readable format (SP 800-218A profile of SSDF PS.3.2)	Scan
`SP800218A-PS.2.1` Integrity Verification Information	Integrity verification information such as cryptographic hashes must be made available to software acquirers (SP 800-218A profile of SSDF PS.2.1)	Scan
`SP800218A-PW.4.1` Well-Secured Component Reuse	Reused components, including AI frameworks and model artifacts, must be acquired from evaluated sources, presupposing a named supplier for each component (SP 800-218A profile of SSDF PW.4.1)	Scan
`SP800218A-PW.4.4` Component Vulnerability Verification	Acquired components must be verified for known vulnerabilities before use, which requires knowing each component's exact version (SP 800-218A profile of SSDF PW.4, component verification)	Scan
`SP800218A-RV.1.1` Vulnerability Monitoring	Vulnerability databases and sources must be monitored for issues affecting the software and its components, requiring identifiable components via PURL or CPE (SP 800-218A profile of SSDF RV.1.1)	Scan
`SP800218A-PS.3.2-PROV` Release Provenance Recording	Provenance collection includes recording who or what produced the composition data for each release (SP 800-218A profile of SSDF PS.3.2, provenance data)	Scan

More controls in the catalog

The framework's Controls tab lists its scan requirements and these controls from Safeguard's control catalog. Evidence them with automated tests, uploaded evidence, policies or an attestation.

Control	Name
`SSDF-AI-PO.1`	Define security and safety requirements for AI-enabled software
`SSDF-AI-PO.2`	Implement secure and trustworthy AI development environment
`SSDF-AI-PO.5`	Assess and manage AI supply chain risks
`SSDF-AI-PS.1`	Design AI software with security and safety in mind
`SSDF-AI-PS.2`	Verify and validate AI model integrity and outputs
`SSDF-AI-PS.3`	Secure training data and protect against data poisoning
`SSDF-AI-PW.1`	Use secure practices for AI model development and training
`SSDF-AI-PW.4`	Reuse vetted AI components and pretrained models responsibly
`SSDF-AI-RV.1`	Monitor and respond to AI-specific vulnerabilities in production
`SSDF-AI-RV.2`	Analyze root causes of AI system failures and vulnerabilities
`SSDF-AI-RV.3`	Remediate AI vulnerabilities and communicate to affected parties

Policy templates

Written for 218A:

AI/ML Model Supply Chain Security Policy
Secure Development Practices for AI-Enabled Software Policy
AI/ML Vulnerability and Incident Response Policy

And 22 from the standard set, adapted to 218A.