What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on A.5.23 Information security for use of cloud services?

Statement of Applicability entry for control A.5.23, showing inclusion or justified exclusion, implementation status and the risks it treats; The topic-specific cloud services policy with selection criteria and scope of permitted use; A shared responsibility matrix per cloud service showing which controls the provider operates and which the organization operates; Cloud risk assessments with documented management acceptance of residual risk; Reviewed cloud service agreements covering data location, incident support, subcontracting, evidence gathering, backup and return of data.

What is the most common gap auditors find on A.5.23?

Cloud services are adopted by business units without passing through the policy or selection criteria

ISO/IEC 27001:2022 · Organizational controls

`A.5.23` Information security for use of cloud services

Processes for buying, using, managing and leaving cloud services are to be set up so that they satisfy what the organization requires for information security. Purpose (stated in ISO/IEC 27002:2022): specifies and manages information security for the organization's use of cloud services. As an Annex A reference control, it is compared with the controls determined in risk treatment (6.1.3 c) and recorded in the Statement of Applicability as included or excluded, with the justification and implementation status (6.1.3 d); implementation guidance is ISO/IEC 27002:2022 5.23.

Source: ISO/IEC 27001:2022, A.5.23. 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

Cloud risk assessments with documented management acceptance of residual risk · Cloud console / configuration management

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

Statement of Applicability entry for control A.5.23, showing inclusion or justified exclusion, implementation status and the risks it treats · Policy repository / GRC workspace
The topic-specific cloud services policy with selection criteria and scope of permitted use · Policy repository / GRC workspace
A shared responsibility matrix per cloud service showing which controls the provider operates and which the organization operates · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Reviewed cloud service agreements covering data location, incident support, subcontracting, evidence gathering, backup and return of data · 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

Cloud services are adopted by business units without passing through the policy or selection criteria
Customer-side responsibilities such as identity and configuration are assumed to belong to the provider
No exit strategy exists, so data retrieval on termination is untested
Data location and subcontractor changes by the provider go unnoticed

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

A.5.22 Monitoring, review and change management of supplier services · A.5.24 Information security incident management planning and preparation