What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on OPS-05 Protection Against Malware - Implementation?

Protection console export showing signature age for every managed host; Production image baseline containing the scan schedule and exclusion set; Coverage reconciliation between the asset register and protected hosts; Detection and quarantine event sample with the follow up action recorded.

What is the most common gap auditors find on OPS-05?

A tail of hosts running signatures days or weeks old with no exception recorded

BSI C5 (121-criteria catalogue) · C5: Operations

`OPS-05` Protection Against Malware - Implementation

Configure production system components with malware protection as the policy prescribes, and where signature and behaviour based detection software is used, update its detection content at least once every day.

Source: BSI C5 (121-criteria catalogue), OPS-05. 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 BSI C5 (121-criteria catalogue) in the compliance library.

The edition of the catalogue is not stamped here; check the edition your attestation is issued against.

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

Protection console export showing signature age for every managed host · Endpoint management (MDM / EDR)

periodic reviewEvidence produced at each review

Detection and quarantine event sample with the follow up action recorded · Endpoint management (MDM / EDR)

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

Production image baseline containing the scan schedule and exclusion set · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Coverage reconciliation between the asset register and protected hosts · 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

A tail of hosts running signatures days or weeks old with no exception recorded
Coverage measured by agents installed rather than against the full asset inventory
Resident scanning switched off on database and hypervisor hosts for performance, with nothing in its place
New instances left unprotected until the next scheduled enrolment run

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

OPS-04 Protection Against Malware - Concept · OPS-06 Data Backup and Recovery - Concept