What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on IM-9 Secure user access to existing applications?

Inventory of applications using legacy authentication; Proxy or broker configuration fronting those applications; Conditional access or equivalent policy applied to that path; Plan and progress for retiring legacy authentication.

What is the most common gap auditors find on IM-9?

legacy authentication endpoints left directly exposed

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

`IM-9` Secure user access to existing applications

Govern user access to legacy and non-native applications in hybrid environments using solutions such as an access security broker, application proxy or single sign-on.

Source: Azure Security Benchmark v3 (renamed Microsoft cloud security benchmark), IM-9. 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

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

Proxy or broker configuration fronting those applications · Cloud console / configuration management
Conditional access or equivalent policy applied to that path · Policy repository / GRC workspace

periodic reviewEvidence produced at each review

none for this control

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

Inventory of applications using legacy authentication · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Plan and progress for retiring legacy authentication · 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

legacy authentication endpoints left directly exposed
no inventory so legacy protocols cannot be blocked safely
broker deployed for some applications while direct paths remain open

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

IM-8 Restrict the exposure of credential and secrets · IR-1 Preparation - update incident response plan and handling process