7.2.5.1 Application and system account access reviewed periodically
All access held by application and system accounts, together with their related privileges, must be reviewed periodically, at a frequency set by the entity's own targeted risk analysis carried out as Requirement 12.3.1 specifies. Each review must confirm that the account's access is still appropriate for the function it performs, address any inappropriate access, and record management's acknowledgement that the access remains appropriate. Objective under the customized approach: management periodically verifies that privilege assignments for application and system accounts are correct and remediates nonconformities. Future-dated: treated as a best practice up to 31 March 2025 and mandatory since then.
Source: PCI DSS v4.0.1, 7.2.5.1. 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
- Remediation tickets for excessive or unneeded service account privileges · Identity provider / directory
periodic reviewEvidence produced at each review
- Targeted risk analysis defining the service account review frequency, prepared per 12.3.1 · Identity provider / directory
- Completed service account review records at the defined frequency · Identity provider / directory
- Management acknowledgement recorded for each review cycle · Identity provider / directory
governing documentDocuments that govern the control
none for this control
First move
Common gaps auditors find
- Review frequency is stated in policy without any supporting targeted risk analysis
- Service accounts are excluded from the user access review and never reviewed
- Accounts for decommissioned applications remain active after review
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 sheet7.2.5 Application and system accounts least privilege · 7.2.6 Query access to stored cardholder data restricted