What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on 5.9 Inventory of information and other associated assets?

The asset inventories (information, hardware, software, virtual, facilities and others) with owner, classification and location fields populated; Reconciliation records between inventories and discovery tooling, or evidence that installs, changes and removals update the inventory automatically; A procedure for assigning ownership on creation or acquisition and reassigning it when owners leave or change role; Records of periodic classification and access restriction reviews carried out by asset owners; Dependency mapping linking technology assets to their supporting components such as databases, storage and software; Disposal records showing assets were securely removed and deleted from the inventory.

What is the most common gap auditors find on 5.9?

The inventory covers hardware only and omits information assets, cloud services and software components

ISO/IEC 27002:2022 · Organizational controls

`5.9` Inventory of information and other associated assets

The organization is to build and keep current an inventory of its information and other associated assets, with their owners recorded. Purpose: know what information and associated assets exist so they can be protected and given suitable owners. Guidance: identify the assets, judge their security importance and record them in dedicated or existing inventories that are accurate, current, consistent and reconciled with each other, using periodic checks against reality or automatic updates whenever an asset is installed, changed or removed; record location where relevant. The inventory may be a set of dynamic lists kept by different functions (information, hardware, software, virtual machines, facilities, personnel, competence, capabilities, records), each asset classified in line with the information it carries (5.12), at a level of detail that suits the organization, accepting that short-lived items such as individual VM instances may not be listed. Ownership: each asset is given an individual or group owner and a classification, promptly on creation or transfer into the organization, and reassigned when owners leave or move. Owner duties across the life cycle: see that assets are inventoried, classified and protected; review the classification periodically; list and link the supporting components of technology assets (databases, storage, software components); set acceptable use requirements (5.10); make sure access restrictions match the classification, work and are reviewed; ensure secure deletion or disposal and removal from the inventory; take part in managing risks to their assets; and support the people who manage their information. Other information: inventories also serve health and safety, insurance, finance, risk, audit, vulnerability management, incident response and recovery; custodians can do daily tasks but the delegator stays accountable; grouping assets by service makes the service owner accountable; ISO/IEC 19770-1 and ISO 55001 give further detail.

Source: ISO/IEC 27002:2022, 5.9. 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

Reconciliation records between inventories and discovery tooling, or evidence that installs, changes and removals update the inventory automatically · Policy repository / GRC workspace

periodic reviewEvidence produced at each review

Records of periodic classification and access restriction reviews carried out by asset owners · Data governance / DLP tooling
Disposal records showing assets were securely removed and deleted from the inventory · Data governance / DLP tooling

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

The asset inventories (information, hardware, software, virtual, facilities and others) with owner, classification and location fields populated · Policy repository / GRC workspace
A procedure for assigning ownership on creation or acquisition and reassigning it when owners leave or change role · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Dependency mapping linking technology assets to their supporting components such as databases, storage and software · Policy repository / GRC workspace

First move

Mostly documents and reviews. Pull the 1 system-held artefact from your Policy repository / GRC workspace 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

The inventory covers hardware only and omits information assets, cloud services and software components
Owners listed are people who have left or generic team names with no accountable individual
The inventory drifts from reality because no reconciliation or automated update exists
Disposed assets remain in the inventory, or live assets never entered it

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

5.8 Information security in project management · 5.10 Acceptable use of information and other associated assets