What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on PA-6 Use privileged access workstations?

Privileged access workstation build standard; List of roles required to use them and the enforcement mechanism; Conditional access or network policy restricting administration to those devices; Compliance reporting on workstation state.

What is the most common gap auditors find on PA-6?

administration performed from the same laptop used for mail and browsing

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

`PA-6` Use privileged access workstations

Provide secured, isolated workstations for sensitive roles such as administrators, developers and critical service operators, so administrative sessions do not originate from general-purpose endpoints.

Source: Azure Security Benchmark v3 (renamed Microsoft cloud security benchmark), PA-6. 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

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

Conditional access or network policy restricting administration to those devices · Endpoint management (MDM / EDR)

periodic reviewEvidence produced at each review

none for this control

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

Privileged access workstation build standard · Policy repository / GRC workspace
List of roles required to use them and the enforcement mechanism · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Compliance reporting on workstation state · Policy repository / GRC workspace

First move

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

Common gaps auditors find

administration performed from the same laptop used for mail and browsing
workstation standard defined but not enforced at sign-in
contractors administering from unmanaged devices

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

PA-5 Set up emergency access · PA-7 Follow just enough administration (least privilege) principle