EvidenceSheet
UK Cyber Essentials · Security Update Management

SU.3 Critical and High Updates within 14 Days

All high or critical security updates (CVSS 7.0+ or vendor critical/high rating) must be applied within 14 days of release.

Source: UK Cyber Essentials, SU.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 UK Cyber Essentials in the compliance library.

The version of the requirements is not stamped here; check the question set your certification body uses.

3
artefacts
1
held by a system
1
at each review
moderate
to go live
Vulnerability scanner / patch tooling
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

  • Patch compliance dashboard from the patch or vulnerability management tool · Vulnerability scanner / patch tooling

periodic reviewEvidence produced at each review

  • 14-day SLA report · Vulnerability scanner / patch tooling

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

  • Exception register · Policy repository / GRC workspace

First move

Start with the 1 of 3 artefacts that already live in a system (Vulnerability scanner / patch tooling); keep the periodic reviews but log each one as a dated record with a named reviewer.

Common gaps auditors find

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

SU.2 Automatic Updates Enabled Where Possible · SU.4 Remove Out-of-Support Software