What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on HRS-04 Remote and Home Working Policy and Procedures?

Remote and home working policy with approval and review records; Endpoint configuration evidence for remote devices: full disk encryption, VPN or zero trust access, screen lock; Register or definition of approved remote locations and any prohibited ones (for example, public spaces for restricted data); Signed remote working agreements or acknowledgements from a sample of staff; Training content covering secure home working.

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

Remote access allowed from unmanaged personal devices without compensating controls

CSA CCM v4.1 · HRS - Human Resources

`HRS-04` Remote and Home Working Policy and Procedures

Keep approved and applied rules that protect information which is accessed, handled or held at remote sites, including home working, and keep those rules reviewed every year and again whenever a significant change occurs.

Source: CSA CCM v4.1, HRS-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 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

Endpoint configuration evidence for remote devices: full disk encryption, VPN or zero trust access, screen lock · Endpoint management (MDM / EDR)

periodic reviewEvidence produced at each review

Signed remote working agreements or acknowledgements from a sample of staff · HR system / LMS

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

Remote and home working policy with approval and review records · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Register or definition of approved remote locations and any prohibited ones (for example, public spaces for restricted data) · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Training content covering secure home working · HR system / LMS

First move

Mostly documents and reviews. Pull the 1 system-held artefact from your Endpoint management (MDM / EDR) on a schedule; put the documents under version control with an owner and review date, and log each review as a dated record with a named reviewer.

Common gaps auditors find

Remote access allowed from unmanaged personal devices without compensating controls
Policy written for office staff only and never updated for hybrid working
No definition of which data classifications may be handled away from the office

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

HRS-03 Clean Desk Policy and Procedures · HRS-05 Asset returns