What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on A.6.4 Disciplinary process?

Statement of Applicability entry for control A.6.4, showing inclusion or justified exclusion, implementation status and the risks it treats; The formal disciplinary procedure covering information security violations, communicated to personnel and relevant external parties; Criteria for a graduated response considering nature, severity, intent, repetition and training received; Case records showing that violations were verified before action began; Evidence that legal, contractual and business requirements were considered in outcomes.

What is the most common gap auditors find on A.6.4?

The HR disciplinary policy makes no mention of information security violations

ISO/IEC 27001:2022 · People controls

`A.6.4` Disciplinary process

A formal disciplinary process is to be established and made known so that action can be taken against staff and relevant outside parties who break the security policy. Purpose (stated in ISO/IEC 27002:2022): ensures people understand the consequences of policy violations, deters violations and deals appropriately with those who commit them. 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 6.4.

Source: ISO/IEC 27001:2022, A.6.4. 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

none for this control

periodic reviewEvidence produced at each review

Case records showing that violations were verified before action began · Document repository
Evidence that legal, contractual and business requirements were considered in outcomes · Document repository

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

Statement of Applicability entry for control A.6.4, showing inclusion or justified exclusion, implementation status and the risks it treats · Policy repository / GRC workspace
The formal disciplinary procedure covering information security violations, communicated to personnel and relevant external parties · HR system / LMS
Criteria for a graduated response considering nature, severity, intent, repetition and training received · HR system / LMS

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

The HR disciplinary policy makes no mention of information security violations
Action is taken on suspicion without verifying that a violation occurred
Responses are inconsistent because there are no criteria for graduation
Contractors and supplier staff fall outside any disciplinary mechanism

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.6.3 Information security awareness, education and training · A.6.5 Responsibilities after termination or change of employment