What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on 21 Disable local administrator accounts (Excellent)?

Local account audit across a sample of computers showing the built-in administrator disabled or holding a unique LAPS-managed passphrase; Group policy or endpoint management settings disabling the built-in local administrator account; Microsoft LAPS or equivalent deployment report showing unique, rotated passphrases per computer; Access control list for who can read stored local admin passphrases, with retrieval audit log.

What is the most common gap auditors find on 21?

Same local administrator password baked into the standard image and shared across all computers

ASD Strategies to Mitigate Cyber Security Incidents · Limiting the Extent of Cyber Security Incidents

`21` Disable local administrator accounts (Excellent)

Disable local administrator accounts or assign unique, complex, unpredictable passphrases to each, using a tool such as Microsoft LAPS.

Source: ASD Strategies to Mitigate Cyber Security Incidents, 21. The statement above is our statement of the clause, read from the published text and cited so you can check it against the official text, not the instrument verbatim. Open ASD Strategies to Mitigate Cyber Security Incidents in the compliance library.

artefacts

held by a system

at each review

easy

to go live

Endpoint management (MDM / EDR)

where the evidence lives

teal = a system already holds it · olive = produced at each review. To go live: easy when half or more of the artefacts are already held by a system, moderate from a quarter to a half, hard below a quarter.

These are the artefacts auditors commonly ask for on this requirement, our guidance rather than text from the standard. Your assessor decides what is sufficient in your context, and asks for samples across the period when a report covers one.

system holds itEvidence a system already holds

Group policy or endpoint management settings disabling the built-in local administrator account · Endpoint management (MDM / EDR)
Microsoft LAPS or equivalent deployment report showing unique, rotated passphrases per computer · Source control / CI pipeline
Access control list for who can read stored local admin passphrases, with retrieval audit log · Identity provider / directory

periodic reviewEvidence produced at each review

Local account audit across a sample of computers showing the built-in administrator disabled or holding a unique LAPS-managed passphrase · Identity provider / directory

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

none for this control

First move

Automate the pull from your Endpoint management (MDM / EDR). Device compliance report from the MDM (encryption, EDR agent, OS version) on a daily pull.

Common gaps auditors find

Same local administrator password baked into the standard image and shared across all computers
LAPS deployed to workstations but not to servers, or passphrases never rotated after use
Broad groups such as the whole IT team able to read every stored local admin passphrase

Do this for your whole sheet

Paste the rows you run your controls from and get this mapping for every control at once, with the periodic-review ones flagged and a first move per row. No account for the first run.

Build my evidence sheet

20 Multi-factor authentication (Essential) · 22 Network segmentation (Excellent)