What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on AM-4 Limit access to asset management?

Role assignments granting asset management permissions; Resource lock or equivalent protection on critical assets; Audit log of asset management operations; Review records for who holds these permissions.

What is the most common gap auditors find on AM-4?

broad write access to resource metadata across the estate

Azure Security Benchmark v3 (renamed Microsoft cloud security benchmark) · Asset Management

`AM-4` Limit access to asset management

Limit user access to asset management features so assets cannot be modified accidentally or maliciously.

Source: Azure Security Benchmark v3 (renamed Microsoft cloud security benchmark), AM-4. 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 Azure Security Benchmark v3 (renamed Microsoft cloud security benchmark) in the compliance library.

artefacts

held by a system

at each review

moderate

to go live

SIEM / log platform

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

Audit log of asset management operations · SIEM / log platform

periodic reviewEvidence produced at each review

Review records for who holds these permissions · Identity provider / directory

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

Role assignments granting asset management permissions · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Resource lock or equivalent protection on critical assets · Document repository

First move

Start with the 1 of 4 artefacts that already live in a system (SIEM / log platform); keep the periodic reviews but log each one as a dated record with a named reviewer.

Common gaps auditors find

broad write access to resource metadata across the estate
no locks on production resources so accidental deletion is possible
asset management actions not separately audited

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

AM-3 Ensure security of asset lifecycle management · AM-5 Use only approved applications in virtual machine