What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on OPS-09 Data Backup and Recovery - Storage?

Location record and distance rationale for the offsite backup repository; Transport manifest or courier chain of custody for physical backup media; Encryption configuration of the backup replication link; Physical and environmental security assessment of the remote storage facility.

What is the most common gap auditors find on OPS-09?

Offsite copy kept in another room of the same building or campus

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

`OPS-09` Data Backup and Recovery - Storage

Hold backup copies at a remote location, transmitting them over the network with state of the art encryption or transporting media physically, choosing the distance by weighing recovery time against shared disaster exposure and matching the main site's physical security level.

Source: BSI C5 (121-criteria catalogue), OPS-09. 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

Encryption configuration of the backup replication link · Backup / DR tooling

periodic reviewEvidence produced at each review

Physical and environmental security assessment of the remote storage facility · Backup / DR tooling

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

Location record and distance rationale for the offsite backup repository · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Transport manifest or courier chain of custody for physical backup media · 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

Offsite copy kept in another room of the same building or campus
Distance chosen for convenience with no analysis of shared flood, grid or seismic exposure
Remote location protected to a lower standard than the primary data centre
Media unprotected in transit because encryption is applied only at rest

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-08 Data Backup and Recovery - Regular Testing · OPS-10 Logging and Monitoring - Concept