8.27 Secure system architecture and engineering principles
Requires principles for engineering secure systems to be established, documented and maintained, then applied across all information system development work.
5
artefacts
0
held by a system
3
at each review
hard
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
none for this control
periodic reviewEvidence produced at each review
- Evidence of maintenance, showing the principles are reviewed against current technology and threat · Cloud console / configuration management
- Architecture review records, showing who reviewed and what was decided, including deviations accepted · Cloud console / configuration management
- Evidence the principles apply across all development work, including infrastructure as code and cloud architecture · Cloud console / configuration management
governing documentDocuments that govern the control
- The documented secure engineering principles, such as defence in depth, least privilege, secure defaults, fail secure and minimising trust · Policy repository / GRC workspace
- Design documentation for systems delivered in the period showing the principles were applied · Policy repository / GRC workspace
First move
This control is evidenced by people and documents, not systems. Put the document under version control with an owner and review date, and log each review as a record with reviewer and date. Do not try to automate it.
Common gaps auditors find
- Principles stated at a level so abstract that no design decision can be tested against them
- Architecture review applied to large projects only, so incremental change accumulates unreviewed
- Principles authored once and never revised, so they do not address cloud, containers or identity centred architecture
- Deviations accepted informally with no record, so the exception becomes the pattern
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