6.5.3 Separate pre-production from production
Pre-production environments, such as development, test and user acceptance testing, must be kept apart from production environments, and that separation must be enforced using access controls. The guidance adds that separation can be logical or physical and is still needed where production infrastructure supports testing or development. The aim is to stop weaknesses created during development and testing, where environments change constantly and are often less hardened, from reaching live systems. It applies to all entities. Objective under the customized approach: pre-production environments cannot bring risks or vulnerabilities into production environments.
Source: PCI DSS v4.0.1, 6.5.3. 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 PCI DSS v4.0.1 in the compliance library.
Version 4.0.1 is the active version; 4.0 has been retired. Appendix A1 applies only to multi-tenant service providers, A2 only to card-present POS POI terminals that still use SSL or early TLS, and A3 only when a payment brand or acquirer requires it. Which requirements apply to you follows your validation type.
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
- Firewall or security group rules restricting traffic between environments · Cloud console / configuration management
- IAM or directory configuration showing distinct access groups per environment · Cloud console / configuration management
periodic reviewEvidence produced at each review
none for this control
governing documentDocuments that govern the control
- Environment separation policy or standard · Policy repository / GRC workspace
- Network diagrams showing pre-production and production segments · Policy repository / GRC workspace
- Cloud account or subscription structure separating environments · Policy repository / GRC workspace
First move
Common gaps auditors find
- Development and production share the same cloud account with broad cross-environment roles
- Test servers can open connections to production databases
- Shared service accounts used across both environments
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 sheet6.5.2 Confirm PCI DSS controls after significant change · 6.5.4 Separate roles between production and pre-production