8.17 Clock synchronization
Requires the clocks of the information processing systems the organisation uses to be synchronised to approved time sources.
5
artefacts
2
held by a system
1
at each review
moderate
to go live
Cloud console / configuration management
where the evidence lives
teal = a system already holds it · olive = produced at each review
system holds itEvidence a system already holds
- Configuration evidence showing systems synchronise to the approved sources, sampled across platforms · Cloud console / configuration management
- Monitoring or alerting on synchronisation failure and on drift beyond a defined tolerance · SIEM / log platform
periodic reviewEvidence produced at each review
- Evidence covering network devices, appliances, cloud services and containers, not only servers · Endpoint management (MDM / EDR)
governing documentDocuments that govern the control
- The approved reference time sources and the synchronisation architecture, including the hierarchy of internal servers · Policy repository / GRC workspace
- Records of time zone handling and of the standard used in log records · Policy repository / GRC workspace
First move
Start with the 2 of 5 artefacts that already live in a system (Cloud console / configuration management); keep the periodic reviews but log each one as a dated record with a named reviewer.
Common gaps auditors find
- Servers synchronised while network devices, appliances and applications set their own time, so correlation across an incident fails
- Synchronisation configured and never monitored, so a failed source goes unnoticed until timestamps disagree
- Multiple unrelated time sources in use across the estate, producing inconsistent ordering of events
- Local time recorded in logs with no time zone, which makes cross system reconstruction unreliable
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 sheet8.16 Monitoring activities · 8.18 Use of privileged utility programs