EvidenceSheet
Azure Security Benchmark v3 (renamed Microsoft cloud security benchmark) · Posture and Vulnerability Management

PV-5 Perform vulnerability assessments

Use Defender Vulnerability Management or equivalent to identify vulnerabilities in VMs, containers, and databases on a continuous basis.

Source: Azure Security Benchmark v3 (renamed Microsoft cloud security benchmark), PV-5. 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.

3
artefacts
1
held by a system
1
at each review
moderate
to go live
Vulnerability scanner / patch tooling
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

  • Patch management evidence · Vulnerability scanner / patch tooling

periodic reviewEvidence produced at each review

  • Vulnerability assessment coverage report · Vulnerability scanner / patch tooling

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

  • Critical/high vulnerability ageing · Policy repository / GRC workspace

First move

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

Common gaps auditors find

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

PV-4 Audit and enforce secure configurations for compute resources · PV-6 Rapidly and automatically remediate vulnerabilities