What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on 5.10 Acceptable use of information and other associated assets?

The acceptable use topic-specific policy stating expected and prohibited behaviour, permitted and forbidden uses, and the monitoring the organization performs; Evidence the policy was communicated to and accepted by personnel and external users; Handling procedures per classification level covering access, copies, storage, media marking and disposal; Records of authorized users for sensitive information and assets; Disposal authorizations with the deletion method used; Agreements governing use of third-party assets such as public cloud services and collaboration platforms.

What is the most common gap auditors find on 5.10?

The policy omits any statement of what monitoring takes place, undermining enforceability

ISO/IEC 27002:2022 · Organizational controls

`5.10` Acceptable use of information and other associated assets

Rules on how information and other associated assets may acceptably be used, together with procedures for handling them, are to be identified, written down and put into practice. Purpose: see that information and associated assets are used, handled and protected properly. Guidance: staff and external users with access should be told what security the organization expects when they use or handle its information and assets and are answerable for their own use of processing facilities. A topic-specific acceptable use policy, communicated to everyone who uses or handles the assets, should set out the behaviour expected and not tolerated, what uses are allowed and forbidden, and what monitoring the organization carries out. Handling procedures cover the whole information life cycle according to classification (5.12) and assessed risk, considering: access restrictions for each classification level; a record of authorized users; protection of temporary and permanent copies equal to the original; storing assets as their manufacturers specify (7.8); marking each copy of electronic or paper media clearly for whoever is authorized to receive it (7.10); and authorization of disposal together with the approved deletion methods (8.10). Other information: where assets belong to someone else, such as public cloud services, their use and the organization's related assets should be identified and controlled, for instance through agreements with the provider, and collaborative working environments need care.

Source: ISO/IEC 27002:2022, 5.10. 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 27002:2022 in the compliance library.

ISO/IEC 27002 is guidance on the Annex A controls; certification is against ISO/IEC 27001. Use this set when your sheet follows the 27002 numbering.

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

none for this control

periodic reviewEvidence produced at each review

Records of authorized users for sensitive information and assets · Document repository

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

The acceptable use topic-specific policy stating expected and prohibited behaviour, permitted and forbidden uses, and the monitoring the organization performs · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Evidence the policy was communicated to and accepted by personnel and external users · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Handling procedures per classification level covering access, copies, storage, media marking and disposal · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Disposal authorizations with the deletion method used · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Agreements governing use of third-party assets such as public cloud services and collaboration platforms · Vendor register / contract repository

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 policy omits any statement of what monitoring takes place, undermining enforceability
Handling rules do not differ by classification, so sensitive copies get no extra protection
External users are never shown the acceptable use rules
Use of cloud collaboration tools falls outside the policy entirely

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

5.9 Inventory of information and other associated assets · 5.11 Return of assets