What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on A.5.29 Information security during disruption?

Statement of Applicability entry for control A.5.29, showing inclusion or justified exclusion, implementation status and the risks it treats; Business continuity plans that contain information security requirements and the controls, systems and tools needed during disruption; A documented analysis of which security controls must be adapted during disruption and how; Compensating controls defined for security controls that cannot be maintained in disruption; Continuity test or exercise results that include restoration of security to the required level and within the required time.

What is the most common gap auditors find on A.5.29?

Continuity plans restore services but omit security controls such as logging, access control or monitoring

ISO/IEC 27001:2022 · Organizational controls

`A.5.29` Information security during disruption

The organization is to plan how it will keep information security at a suitable level while operations are disrupted. Purpose (stated in ISO/IEC 27002:2022): protects information and associated assets during disruption. 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 5.29.

Source: ISO/IEC 27001:2022, A.5.29. 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

Continuity test or exercise results that include restoration of security to the required level and within the required time · Backup / DR tooling

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

Statement of Applicability entry for control A.5.29, showing inclusion or justified exclusion, implementation status and the risks it treats · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Business continuity plans that contain information security requirements and the controls, systems and tools needed during disruption · Policy repository / GRC workspace
A documented analysis of which security controls must be adapted during disruption and how · Document repository
Compensating controls defined for security controls that cannot be maintained in disruption · 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

Continuity plans restore services but omit security controls such as logging, access control or monitoring
Emergency workarounds bypass security with no compensating measure
Exercises test only availability, never the security state after recovery
The impact analysis ignores confidentiality and integrity

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.5.28 Collection of evidence · A.5.30 ICT readiness for business continuity