What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on PSS-04 Error handling and Logging Mechanisms?

Sample audit log entries showing actor, object, action and timestamp; Configuration listing which security relevant changes generate a log record; Access control settings that protect log stores from alteration; Customer facing function allowing deletion or retention control of logs.

What is the most common gap auditors find on PSS-04?

Logs capture system events but not access to customer data

BSI C5 (121-criteria catalogue) · C5: Product Safety and Security

`PSS-04` Error handling and Logging Mechanisms

Provide error handling and logging that lets customers see who accessed which data, service or function and when, malfunctions during automatic or manual actions, and changes to security configuration, logging, authentication, authorisation, cryptography and communication settings, with logs protected and customer deletable.

Source: BSI C5 (121-criteria catalogue), PSS-04. 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

easy

to go live

SIEM / log platform

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

Sample audit log entries showing actor, object, action and timestamp · SIEM / log platform
Configuration listing which security relevant changes generate a log record · SIEM / log platform
Access control settings that protect log stores from alteration · Identity provider / directory
Customer facing function allowing deletion or retention control of logs · SIEM / log platform

periodic reviewEvidence produced at each review

none for this control

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

none for this control

First move

Automate the pull from your SIEM / log platform. Retention and alert rules exported from the SIEM; review evidence is the closed-alert record with reviewer and time.

Common gaps auditors find

Logs capture system events but not access to customer data
Changes to the logging configuration are themselves not logged
Customers can read logs while administrators can alter them without trace
Logging capability shipped disabled by default and left undocumented

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

PSS-03 Online Register of Known Vulnerabilities · PSS-05 Authentication Mechanisms