What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on PV-6 Rapidly and automatically remediate vulnerabilities?

Automated patch deployment configuration and schedule; Risk-based prioritisation criteria combining severity and asset value; Mean time to remediate by severity; Exception register for assets excluded from automated patching.

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

patching scheduled monthly regardless of severity

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

`PV-6` Rapidly and automatically remediate vulnerabilities

Deploy patches and updates rapidly and automatically to remediate vulnerabilities in cloud resources, prioritising by risk so severe vulnerabilities on high value assets are addressed first.

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

hard

to go live

Policy repository / GRC workspace

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

none for this control

periodic reviewEvidence produced at each review

none for this control

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

Automated patch deployment configuration and schedule · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Risk-based prioritisation criteria combining severity and asset value · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Mean time to remediate by severity · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Exception register for assets excluded from automated patching · Policy repository / GRC workspace

First move

No system holds this evidence for you: it is people and documents. Reminders and routing to the owner still save time. Put the document under version control with an owner and review date, and log each review as a record with reviewer and date.

Common gaps auditors find

patching scheduled monthly regardless of severity
asset value not factored so critical systems queue behind test systems
automation covers operating systems only, leaving platform services unpatched

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-5 Perform vulnerability assessments · PV-7 Conduct regular red team operations