What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on OPS-08 Data Backup and Recovery - Regular Testing?

Restore test plan naming the systems, data sets and pass criteria; Test report recording elapsed restore duration against the target; Integrity verification evidence for the restored copy; Corrective action log for shortfalls identified during the test.

What is the most common gap auditors find on OPS-08?

Tests restore a single small file rather than a system to a usable state

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

`OPS-08` Data Backup and Recovery - Regular Testing

Test restore procedures at least annually so that adherence to contractual agreements and to the defined maximum tolerable downtime and maximum permissible data loss can be assessed, and report any deviation to responsible personnel for prompt action.

Source: BSI C5 (121-criteria catalogue), OPS-08. 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

Backup / DR 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

Corrective action log for shortfalls identified during the test · Backup / DR tooling

periodic reviewEvidence produced at each review

Test report recording elapsed restore duration against the target · Backup / DR tooling
Integrity verification evidence for the restored copy · Backup / DR tooling

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

Restore test plan naming the systems, data sets and pass criteria · Policy repository / GRC workspace

First move

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

Common gaps auditors find

Tests restore a single small file rather than a system to a usable state
Elapsed duration never measured, so the recovery objective is not actually proven
Testing performed on the very infrastructure a real disaster would remove
Annual test skipped in a busy year with no approved deferral recorded

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-07 Data Backup and Recovery - Monitoring · OPS-09 Data Backup and Recovery - Storage