What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on A.5.26 Response to information security incidents?

Statement of Applicability entry for control A.5.26, showing inclusion or justified exclusion, implementation status and the risks it treats; Documented incident response procedures or playbooks communicated to relevant parties; Incident records showing containment, evidence collection, escalation, communication and formal closure; Response activity logs or ticket histories kept for later analysis; Communication records to internal and external parties following need-to-know.

What is the most common gap auditors find on A.5.26?

Containment is delayed while approval is sought, letting the incident spread

ISO/IEC 27001:2022 · Organizational controls

`A.5.26` Response to information security incidents

Incidents are to be handled following the documented response procedures. Purpose (stated in ISO/IEC 27002:2022): ensures incidents are responded to efficiently and effectively. 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 5.26.

Source: ISO/IEC 27001:2022, A.5.26. 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

moderate

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

Incident records showing containment, evidence collection, escalation, communication and formal closure · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Response activity logs or ticket histories kept for later analysis · SIEM / log platform

periodic reviewEvidence produced at each review

Communication records to internal and external parties following need-to-know · Policy repository / GRC workspace

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

Statement of Applicability entry for control A.5.26, showing inclusion or justified exclusion, implementation status and the risks it treats · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Documented incident response procedures or playbooks communicated to relevant parties · Policy repository / GRC workspace

First move

Start with the 2 of 5 artefacts that already live in a system (Policy repository / GRC workspace); keep the periodic reviews but log each one as a dated record with a named reviewer.

Common gaps auditors find

Containment is delayed while approval is sought, letting the incident spread
Incidents are closed without root cause analysis
Response actions are not logged, so later analysis and evidence are weak
Control weaknesses revealed by the incident are never 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

A.5.25 Assessment and decision on information security events · A.5.27 Learning from information security incidents