What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on 25 Software firewall - inbound (Very Good)?

Listening services inventory for standard builds, each port tied to an approved inbound firewall rule and owner; Host firewall policy export showing inbound traffic blocked by default with only approved listening services allowed; Endpoint management compliance report confirming the host firewall is enabled on all profiles; Blocked inbound connection logs from a sample of computers.

What is the most common gap auditors find on 25?

Host firewall disabled on the domain profile on the assumption the perimeter firewall is enough

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

`25` Software firewall - inbound (Very Good)

Software-based application firewall, blocking incoming network traffic that is malicious or unauthorised.

Source: ASD Strategies to Mitigate Cyber Security Incidents, 25. 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

Cloud console / configuration management

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

Host firewall policy export showing inbound traffic blocked by default with only approved listening services allowed · Cloud console / configuration management
Endpoint management compliance report confirming the host firewall is enabled on all profiles · Endpoint management (MDM / EDR)
Blocked inbound connection logs from a sample of computers · SIEM / log platform

periodic reviewEvidence produced at each review

none for this control

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

Listening services inventory for standard builds, each port tied to an approved inbound firewall rule and owner · Policy repository / GRC workspace

First move

Automate the pull from your Cloud console / configuration management. Configuration snapshots and change history from the cloud console or IaC repository, diffed against the baseline.

Common gaps auditors find

Host firewall disabled on the domain profile on the assumption the perimeter firewall is enough
Broad inbound allow rules for SMB, RDP or WinRM from any internal address
Users with local admin rights able to switch off the firewall or add their own exceptions

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

24 Non-persistent virtualised sandboxed environment (Very Good) · 26 Software firewall - outbound (Very Good)