What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on 5.26 Response to information security incidents?

Documented incident response procedures or playbooks communicated to relevant parties; Incident records showing containment, evidence collection, escalation, communication and formal closure; Response activity logs or ticket histories kept for later analysis; Communication records to internal and external parties following need-to-know; Root cause analysis reports and the resulting vulnerability or control weakness remediation actions; Records of coordination with authorities, suppliers or clients during significant incidents.

What is the most common gap auditors find on 5.26?

Containment is delayed while approval is sought, letting the incident spread

ISO/IEC 27002:2022 · Organizational controls

`5.26` Response to information security incidents

Incidents are to be handled following the documented response procedures. Purpose: respond to information security incidents efficiently and effectively. Guidance: set and communicate response procedures to relevant parties, and have a designated, competent team respond (5.24). Response includes: containing affected systems where consequences could spread; collecting evidence as early as possible (5.28); escalating as needed, including crisis management and possibly business continuity plans (5.29, 5.30); logging all response activity for later analysis; informing relevant internal and external parties of the incident or relevant details on a need-to-know basis; working with authorities, specialist groups, suppliers and clients to respond better and limit harm to others; formally closing and recording the incident once resolved; carrying out forensic analysis where required (5.28); analysing afterwards to find the root cause and documenting and communicating it as defined (5.27); and identifying and managing vulnerabilities and weaknesses, including control weaknesses that caused, contributed to or failed to stop the incident. More on incident handling is in ISO/IEC 27035.

Source: ISO/IEC 27002:2022, 5.26. 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 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

moderate

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

Incident records showing containment, evidence collection, escalation, communication and formal closure · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Response activity logs or ticket histories kept for later analysis · SIEM / log platform

periodic reviewEvidence produced at each review

Communication records to internal and external parties following need-to-know · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Root cause analysis reports and the resulting vulnerability or control weakness remediation actions · Vulnerability scanner / patch tooling
Records of coordination with authorities, suppliers or clients during significant incidents · Vendor register / contract repository

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

Documented incident response procedures or playbooks communicated to relevant parties · Policy repository / GRC workspace

First move

Start with the 2 of 6 artefacts that already live in a system (Policy repository / GRC workspace); keep the periodic reviews but log each one as a dated record with a named reviewer.

Common gaps auditors find

Containment is delayed while approval is sought, letting the incident spread
Incidents are closed without root cause analysis
Response actions are not logged, so later analysis and evidence are weak
Control weaknesses revealed by the incident are never tracked to remediation

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

5.25 Assessment and decision on information security events · 5.27 Learning from information security incidents