What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on IAM-02 Credentials Management Policy and Procedures?

Credential management policy covering passwords, keys, tokens, certificates and secrets; Directory or identity provider settings for password length, complexity, history and lockout; Secrets management standard for service accounts and API keys; Exception register for systems that cannot meet the credential rules; Record of the latest review and any review after a significant change.

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

Policy still limited to user passwords while API keys and tokens go unmanaged

CSA CCM v4.1 · IAM - Identity & Access Management

`IAM-02` Credentials Management Policy and Procedures

Keep approved and enforced policies and procedures for managing authentication credentials of every kind, passwords included, and keep them reviewed every year and again whenever a significant change occurs.

Source: CSA CCM v4.1, IAM-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

Directory or identity provider settings for password length, complexity, history and lockout · Identity provider / directory

periodic reviewEvidence produced at each review

Record of the latest review and any review after a significant change · Document repository

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

Credential management policy covering passwords, keys, tokens, certificates and secrets · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Secrets management standard for service accounts and API keys · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Exception register for systems that cannot meet the credential rules · Policy repository / GRC workspace

First move

Mostly documents and reviews. Pull the 1 system-held artefact from your Identity provider / directory 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

Policy still limited to user passwords while API keys and tokens go unmanaged
Rules set in policy but not configured in the identity provider
Legacy systems left on weak credential settings without an exception

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

IAM-01 Identity and Access Management Policy and Procedures · IAM-03 Identity Inventory