What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on A.5.28 Collection of evidence?

Statement of Applicability entry for control A.5.28, showing inclusion or justified exclusion, implementation status and the risks it treats; Evidence handling procedures covering identification, collection, acquisition and preservation for different media and for powered-on and powered-off devices; Chain of custody records for evidence collected during incidents; Forensic images with hash values demonstrating that copies match originals; Qualifications or certifications of forensic personnel and validated forensic tools.

What is the most common gap auditors find on A.5.28?

Responders reimage or power off systems before evidence is captured

ISO/IEC 27001:2022 · Organizational controls

`A.5.28` Collection of evidence

Procedures are to be set up and followed for identifying, collecting, acquiring and preserving evidence connected with information security events. Purpose (stated in ISO/IEC 27002:2022): ensures evidence related to incidents is managed consistently and effectively for disciplinary and legal purposes. 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 5.28.

Source: ISO/IEC 27001:2022, A.5.28. 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

Chain of custody records for evidence collected during incidents · Document repository
Qualifications or certifications of forensic personnel and validated forensic tools · Document repository

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

Statement of Applicability entry for control A.5.28, showing inclusion or justified exclusion, implementation status and the risks it treats · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Evidence handling procedures covering identification, collection, acquisition and preservation for different media and for powered-on and powered-off devices · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Forensic images with hash values demonstrating that copies match originals · 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

Responders reimage or power off systems before evidence is captured
No chain of custody is kept, so evidence would not be admissible
Copies are made without hashing, so integrity cannot be demonstrated
Cross-border evidence is collected without checking the legal right to do so

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.5.27 Learning from information security incidents · A.5.29 Information security during disruption