What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on A.5.3 Segregation of duties?

Statement of Applicability entry for control A.5.3, showing inclusion or justified exclusion, implementation status and the risks it treats; A segregation of duties matrix identifying which conflicting duties the organization has chosen to separate; Role definitions and a role conflict ruleset in the identity or ERP system; Output of automated or periodic conflict analysis and records of conflicts removed; Change and access request records showing requester, approver and implementer are different people.

What is the most common gap auditors find on A.5.3?

Developers retain standing write access to production

ISO/IEC 27001:2022 · Organizational controls

`A.5.3` Segregation of duties

Duties and areas of responsibility that conflict with each other are to be kept apart. Purpose (stated in ISO/IEC 27002:2022): reduces the risk of fraud, error and circumvention of information security controls. 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 5.3.

Source: ISO/IEC 27001:2022, A.5.3. 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

easy

to go live

Identity provider / directory

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

Role definitions and a role conflict ruleset in the identity or ERP system · Identity provider / directory
Output of automated or periodic conflict analysis and records of conflicts removed · Document repository
Change and access request records showing requester, approver and implementer are different people · Identity provider / directory

periodic reviewEvidence produced at each review

none for this control

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

Statement of Applicability entry for control A.5.3, showing inclusion or justified exclusion, implementation status and the risks it treats · Policy repository / GRC workspace
A segregation of duties matrix identifying which conflicting duties the organization has chosen to separate · Policy repository / GRC workspace

First move

Automate the pull from your Identity provider / directory. Scheduled export of users, roles and MFA state from the directory; access-review completion pulled from the IdP, not a spreadsheet.

Common gaps auditors find

Developers retain standing write access to production
Conflict rules exist on paper but are not enforced in the access management tooling
Small teams claim segregation is impossible and record no compensating control
Role reassignments leave individuals holding both old and new conflicting roles

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.5.2 Information security roles and responsibilities · A.5.4 Management responsibilities