What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on A.7.13 Equipment maintenance?

Statement of Applicability entry for control A.7.13, showing inclusion or justified exclusion, implementation status and the risks it treats; A maintenance programme and schedule aligned with supplier-recommended intervals and specifications, covering IT, power, fire, alarm and HVAC equipment; Maintenance and fault logs recording faults and preventive and corrective work; Lists of authorized maintenance personnel and signed confidentiality agreements; Supervision records for on-site maintenance and authorization and logging of remote maintenance sessions.

What is the most common gap auditors find on A.7.13?

Remote maintenance access by vendors is permanently enabled and unmonitored

ISO/IEC 27001:2022 · Physical controls

`A.7.13` Equipment maintenance

Equipment is to be properly maintained so that information stays confidential, intact and available. Purpose (stated in ISO/IEC 27002:2022): prevents loss, compromise or operational interruption caused by lack of equipment maintenance. 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 7.13.

Source: ISO/IEC 27001:2022, A.7.13. 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

Maintenance and fault logs recording faults and preventive and corrective work · Physical access / facilities

periodic reviewEvidence produced at each review

Supervision records for on-site maintenance and authorization and logging of remote maintenance sessions · Physical access / facilities

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

Statement of Applicability entry for control A.7.13, showing inclusion or justified exclusion, implementation status and the risks it treats · Policy repository / GRC workspace
A maintenance programme and schedule aligned with supplier-recommended intervals and specifications, covering IT, power, fire, alarm and HVAC equipment · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Lists of authorized maintenance personnel and signed confidentiality agreements · Policy repository / GRC workspace

First move

Mostly documents and reviews. Pull the 1 system-held artefact from your Physical access / facilities 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

Remote maintenance access by vendors is permanently enabled and unmonitored
Maintenance of fire, alarm and power equipment is not tracked alongside IT equipment
Equipment returns from repair without any check for tampering
Engineers work unsupervised in data rooms

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.7.12 Cabling security · A.7.14 Secure disposal or re-use of equipment