What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on 7.6 Working in secure areas?

Documented rules for working in secure areas that apply to all personnel and activities; Records showing that knowledge of secure areas is limited to people who need it; Supervision or two-person rules and records for work in secure areas; Inspection records for vacant secure areas and evidence they are locked; A policy and signage prohibiting unauthorized recording devices, with authorization records for exceptions; Visible or readily accessible emergency procedures in each secure area.

What is the most common gap auditors find on 7.6?

Staff routinely take phones with cameras into secure areas without authorization

ISO/IEC 27002:2022 · Physical controls

`7.6` Working in secure areas

Security measures for working inside secure areas are to be designed and put in place. Purpose: stop the people who work in secure areas from damaging or tampering with the information and assets held there. Guidance: the measures apply to all personnel and to every activity in the secure area. Consider telling people that a secure area exists, or what happens in it, only when they need to know; avoiding unsupervised work there, for safety and to reduce the opportunity for malicious acts; locking vacant secure areas and inspecting them periodically; banning photographic, video, audio and other recording equipment, including cameras on user devices, unless authorized; controlling how user endpoint devices are brought in and used; and displaying emergency procedures where they can be seen or easily reached.

Source: ISO/IEC 27002:2022, 7.6. 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

Physical access / facilities

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

Documented rules for working in secure areas that apply to all personnel and activities · Physical access / facilities

periodic reviewEvidence produced at each review

Records showing that knowledge of secure areas is limited to people who need it · Physical access / facilities
Supervision or two-person rules and records for work in secure areas · Physical access / facilities
Inspection records for vacant secure areas and evidence they are locked · Physical access / facilities

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

A policy and signage prohibiting unauthorized recording devices, with authorization records for exceptions · Policy repository / GRC workspace
Visible or readily accessible emergency procedures in each secure area · 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

Staff routinely take phones with cameras into secure areas without authorization
Work in data rooms is done alone out of hours with no supervision
Vacant secure rooms are left unlocked
Floor plans and descriptions of secure areas circulate widely

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

7.5 Protecting against physical and environmental threats · 7.7 Clear desk and clear screen