What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on 4.4 Information security management system?

An ISMS manual or process map showing the ISMS processes and how they interact; Evidence each process required by Clauses 4 to 10 is defined and operating; Records demonstrating maintenance and improvement over time, such as updated procedures and closed improvement actions; Ownership assigned for each ISMS process.

What is the most common gap auditors find on 4.4?

The ISMS exists as documents that do not describe how processes connect

ISO/IEC 27001:2022 · Clause 4

`4.4` Information security management system

The organization must set up, put into operation, keep up and keep improving an ISMS, including the processes it needs and how those processes interact, in line with what this standard requires.

Source: ISO/IEC 27001:2022, 4.4. 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 ISO/IEC 27001:2022 in the compliance library.

Clauses 4 to 10 are the management-system requirements: none of them can be excluded when an organisation claims conformity. The 93 Annex A controls are a reference set: one may be excluded with a justification in the Statement of Applicability. Certification bodies assess conformity; the evidence lists here are what auditors commonly ask for, not a list the standard prescribes.

artefacts

held by a system

at each review

hard

to go live

Document 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

Evidence each process required by Clauses 4 to 10 is defined and operating · Document repository
Records demonstrating maintenance and improvement over time, such as updated procedures and closed improvement actions · Policy repository / GRC workspace

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

An ISMS manual or process map showing the ISMS processes and how they interact · Document repository
Ownership assigned for each ISMS process · 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

The ISMS exists as documents that do not describe how processes connect
Some required processes, such as planning of changes, are missing
No evidence of improvement between certification cycles
Process owners are not named

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

4.3 Determining the scope of the information security management system · 5.1 Leadership and commitment