What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on A.6.3 Information security awareness, education and training?

Statement of Applicability entry for control A.6.3, showing inclusion or justified exclusion, implementation status and the risks it treats; A documented awareness, education and training programme aligned with the policies and planned by role, including external personnel; Completion records for initial training of new starters and role changers and for periodic refreshers; Assessment results testing understanding at the end of training activities; Awareness materials across channels covering management commitment, obligations, accountability, event reporting and baseline controls.

What is the most common gap auditors find on A.6.3?

Training is a single annual click-through with no test of understanding

ISO/IEC 27001:2022 · People controls

`A.6.3` Information security awareness, education and training

The organization's personnel and relevant interested parties are to receive information security awareness, education and training suited to their jobs, together with regular updates on the policy, topic-specific policies and procedures. Purpose (stated in ISO/IEC 27002:2022): makes staff and relevant outside parties know and carry out their security duties. 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 6.3.

Source: ISO/IEC 27001:2022, A.6.3. 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

hard

to go live

HR system / LMS

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

Completion records for initial training of new starters and role changers and for periodic refreshers · HR system / LMS

periodic reviewEvidence produced at each review

Assessment results testing understanding at the end of training activities · HR system / LMS

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

Statement of Applicability entry for control A.6.3, showing inclusion or justified exclusion, implementation status and the risks it treats · Policy repository / GRC workspace
A documented awareness, education and training programme aligned with the policies and planned by role, including external personnel · HR system / LMS
Awareness materials across channels covering management commitment, obligations, accountability, event reporting and baseline controls · HR system / LMS

First move

Mostly documents and reviews. Pull the 1 system-held artefact from your HR system / LMS on a schedule; put the documents under version control with an owner and review date, and log each review as a dated record with a named reviewer.

Common gaps auditors find

Training is a single annual click-through with no test of understanding
Contractors and supplier staff are excluded from the programme
Technical teams receive no specialist security training for the systems they manage
Content is generic and never updated after incidents or policy changes

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.6.2 Terms and conditions of employment · A.6.4 Disciplinary process