What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on CEK-11 Key Purpose?

Key inventory recording the purpose of each key; KMS key policies restricting each key to its intended use; Procedure prohibiting key reuse across purposes; Review of sample keys against recorded purpose.

What is the most common gap auditors find on CEK-11?

Same key used for encryption and signing

CSA CCM v4.1 · CEK - Cryptography, Encryption & Key Management

`CEK-11` Key Purpose

Cryptographic secret and private keys are managed so that each is provisioned for one specific purpose.

Source: CSA CCM v4.1, CEK-11. 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

Review of sample keys against recorded purpose · Key management / PKI

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

Key inventory recording the purpose of each key · Policy repository / GRC workspace
KMS key policies restricting each key to its intended use · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Procedure prohibiting key reuse across purposes · 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

Same key used for encryption and signing
Key purpose not recorded
Keys shared across environments

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

CEK-10 Key Generation · CEK-12 Key Rotation