What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on STA-16 Supply Chain Data Security Assessment?

Supplier assessment methodology with risk tiers and the assessment depth for each; Completed supplier security assessments, for example questionnaires, SOC 2 reviews or onsite visits; Tiering records showing why each supplier received its level of assessment; Follow-up actions from assessment findings.

What is the most common gap auditors find on STA-16?

Every supplier gets the same questionnaire regardless of risk

CSA CCM v4.1 · STA - Supply Chain Management, Transparency, and Accountability

`STA-16` Supply Chain Data Security Assessment

The organisation defines and runs a process for assessing the security of its supply chain, with the depth and frequency of each assessment set by risk.

Source: CSA CCM v4.1, STA-16. 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

Vendor register / contract repository

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

Completed supplier security assessments, for example questionnaires, SOC 2 reviews or onsite visits · Vendor register / contract repository
Tiering records showing why each supplier received its level of assessment · Vendor register / contract repository

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

Supplier assessment methodology with risk tiers and the assessment depth for each · Vendor register / contract repository
Follow-up actions from assessment findings · 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

Every supplier gets the same questionnaire regardless of risk
High-risk suppliers assessed once and never again
Assessment findings not tracked to remediation

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

STA-15 Supply Chain Governance Review · TVM-01 Threat and Vulnerability Management Policy and Procedures