What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on OPS-22 Testing and Documentation of known Vulnerabilities?

Authenticated scan schedule together with the most recent coverage report; Finding list showing severity ratings and the assigned remediation due dates; Reconciliation between scanned targets and the configuration management database; Patch deployment record for a sampled critical finding.

What is the most common gap auditors find on OPS-22?

Unauthenticated scans returning far fewer findings than the estate actually holds

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

`OPS-22` Testing and Documentation of known Vulnerabilities

Check production system components automatically for known vulnerabilities at least once a month under the vulnerability handling rules, assess severity against defined criteria and initiate remediation or mitigation within the time window that severity carries.

Source: BSI C5 (121-criteria catalogue), OPS-22. 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

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 deployment record for a sampled critical finding · Vulnerability scanner / patch tooling

periodic reviewEvidence produced at each review

none for this control

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

Authenticated scan schedule together with the most recent coverage report · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Finding list showing severity ratings and the assigned remediation due dates · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Reconciliation between scanned targets and the configuration management database · Policy repository / GRC workspace

First move

Start with the 1 of 4 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

Unauthenticated scans returning far fewer findings than the estate actually holds
Coverage omitting container images, short lived hosts and appliances
Monthly scans run but findings never assigned an owner or a due date
Hosts discovered by the scanner that appear nowhere in the asset inventory

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-21 Involvement of Cloud Customers in the Event of Incidents · OPS-23 Managing Vulnerabilities, Malfunctions and Errors - System Hardening