What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on BCR-07 Communication?

Crisis communication plan naming stakeholders, channels and spokespeople; Current stakeholder contact lists including customers, regulators and suppliers; Out-of-band communication tools (for example status page, alternate messaging) and their test records; Message templates for customer and regulator notifications.

What is the most common gap auditors find on BCR-07?

Contact lists stale or held only in the primary email system

CSA CCM v4.1 · BCR - Business Continuity Management and Operational Resilience

`BCR-07` Communication

Communication channels with every relevant stakeholder are set up and kept working for use while continuity and resilience procedures are in progress.

Source: CSA CCM v4.1, BCR-07. 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

Out-of-band communication tools (for example status page, alternate messaging) and their test records · Policy repository / GRC workspace

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

Crisis communication plan naming stakeholders, channels and spokespeople · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Current stakeholder contact lists including customers, regulators and suppliers · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Message templates for customer and regulator notifications · Policy repository / GRC workspace

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

Contact lists stale or held only in the primary email system
Customers left out of the stakeholder list
Alternate channels never tested

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

BCR-06 Business Continuity Exercises · BCR-08 Backup