A.8.26 Application security requirements
Information security requirements are to be identified, specified and approved whenever applications are developed or acquired. Purpose (stated in ISO/IEC 27002:2022): leaves no security requirement unidentified or unaddressed when applications are built or bought. 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 8.26.
Source: ISO/IEC 27001:2022, A.8.26. 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.
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
none for this control
governing documentDocuments that govern the control
- Statement of Applicability entry for control A.8.26, showing inclusion or justified exclusion, implementation status and the risks it treats · Policy repository / GRC workspace
- Approved application security requirements documents for new or acquired applications, derived from risk assessment with security specialist input · Policy repository / GRC workspace
- Requirement checklists covering authentication, classification, access segregation, attack resilience, legal and privacy needs, data protection, encryption, input and output controls, logging and error handling · Policy repository / GRC workspace
- Additional requirements for partner transactional services covering identity trust, integrity mechanisms, approval authority and non-repudiation · Document repository
- Payment and ordering application requirements covering verification, duplication prevention and storage away from public exposure · Document repository
First move
Common gaps auditors find
- Applications are bought on functionality alone with security requirements never specified
- Requirements are generic and not derived from any risk assessment
- Free-text fields collect personal data that nobody planned to protect
- Verbose error messages disclose internal details to users
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 sheetA.8.25 Secure development life cycle · A.8.27 Secure system architecture and engineering principles