What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on PA-1 Separate and limit highly privileged/administrative users?

Global Admin inventory (target less than 5); Privileged role assignment review; Break-glass account procedure.

Azure Security Benchmark v3 (renamed Microsoft cloud security benchmark) · Privileged Access

`PA-1` Separate and limit highly privileged/administrative users

Limit and separate highly privileged accounts including Global Administrators with documented role assignments and break-glass procedures.

Source: Azure Security Benchmark v3 (renamed Microsoft cloud security benchmark), PA-1. 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

Identity provider / directory

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

Global Admin inventory (target less than 5) · Identity provider / directory

periodic reviewEvidence produced at each review

Privileged role assignment review · Identity provider / directory

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

Break-glass account procedure · Policy repository / GRC workspace

First move

Start with the 1 of 3 artefacts that already live in a system (Identity provider / directory); keep the periodic reviews but log each one as a dated record with a named reviewer.

Common gaps auditors find

Too many Global Admins
Standing privileged access
Break-glass accounts not monitored

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

NS-10 Ensure Domain Name System (DNS) security · PA-2 Avoid standing access for user accounts and permissions