What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on A&A-02 Independent Assessments?

Register of applicable standards and regulations used to scope assessments; Most recent independent assessment report (for example SOC 2 Type 2, ISO/IEC 27001 surveillance or STAR Level 2) with its period of coverage; Annual audit plan showing each assessment scheduled; Engagement letters or auditor statements confirming the assessor's independence; Management oversight minutes reviewing assessment results.

What is the most common gap auditors find on A&A-02?

Assessment performed by staff who operate the controls under review

CSA CCM v4.1 · A&A - Audit & Assurance

`A&A-02` Independent Assessments

Independent audit and assurance assessments are carried out against the relevant standards at a minimum of once a year.

Source: CSA CCM v4.1, A&A-02. 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 CSA CCM v4.1 in the compliance library.

Version 4.1 adds 11 controls (among them API security, log sanitisation and a service bill of materials) and renumbers several domains. CSA accepts v4.0.x during its transition; if your STAR assessment is still on v4.0.1, check the numbering against it.

artefacts

held by a system

at each review

hard

to go live

Policy repository / GRC workspace

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

none for this control

periodic reviewEvidence produced at each review

Most recent independent assessment report (for example SOC 2 Type 2, ISO/IEC 27001 surveillance or STAR Level 2) with its period of coverage · Document repository
Management oversight minutes reviewing assessment results · Policy repository / GRC workspace

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

Register of applicable standards and regulations used to scope assessments · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Annual audit plan showing each assessment scheduled · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Engagement letters or auditor statements confirming the assessor's independence · Document repository

First move

No system holds this evidence for you: it is people and documents. Reminders and routing to the owner still save time. Put the document under version control with an owner and review date, and log each review as a record with reviewer and date.

Common gaps auditors find

Assessment performed by staff who operate the controls under review
Gap of more than a year between assessment periods
Scope of the independent assessment excludes some cloud services offered

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

A&A-01 Audit and Assurance Policy and Procedures · A&A-03 Risk Based Planning Assessment