What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on 6.2 Information security objectives and planning to achieve them?

Written security objectives for each relevant function and level, consistent with the policy; Measures or indicators for each objective and monitoring results; Plans stating actions, resources, responsibility, target dates and evaluation method; Evidence that objectives were communicated and updated.

What is the most common gap auditors find on 6.2?

Objectives are vague statements that cannot be measured

ISO/IEC 27001:2022 · Clause 6

`6.2` Information security objectives and planning to achieve them

The organization must set security objectives for the functions and levels where they matter. They must agree with the policy, be measurable where practicable, reflect applicable security requirements together with what risk assessment and risk treatment have shown, be monitored, be communicated, be updated as needed, and exist as documented information, which the organization retains. When planning how to reach them it decides what will be done, the resources required, who is responsible, the completion date and how results will be evaluated.

Source: ISO/IEC 27001:2022, 6.2. 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

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

Evidence that objectives were communicated and updated · Policy repository / GRC workspace

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

Written security objectives for each relevant function and level, consistent with the policy · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Measures or indicators for each objective and monitoring results · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Plans stating actions, resources, responsibility, target dates and evaluation method · 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

Objectives are vague statements that cannot be measured
No plan states who does what by when
Objectives are not informed by risk assessment results
Progress is never monitored

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

6.1.3 Information security risk treatment · 6.3 Planning of changes