BSI C5:2020·Criterion DEV-01·high·Component: Development & Change Management

What this control requires

Documents secure development policies per SP-01, covering requirements, design, testing, and deployment per industry standards. Ensures security throughout the cloud service lifecycle, protecting customer data from vulnerabilities introduced during development.
— BSI C5:2020, Criterion DEV-01

In plain English

Documents secure development policies per SP-01, covering requirements, design, testing, and deployment per industry standards. In practice, this means you can prove you information development-level controls on a defined cadence.

Why it matters

BSI C5 is the default cloud-security baseline German public-sector buyers and many DAX-listed enterprises expect; gaps here directly block procurement in the DACH region and frequently appear as must-have items in EU public-tender documents.

This control is rated high. Auditors expect a named owner, a remediation SLA, and a tooling artefact that evidences continuous operation.

What an auditor looks for

A C5 attesting auditor (under ISAE 3000 / IDW PS 860) tests both the design and — for a Type 2 — the operating effectiveness over the attestation period. For each criterion they look for both the Basic and any in-scope Additional objectives.

Within Development & Change Management, the assessor will trace your implementation back to the catalogue reference (Criterion DEV-01) and look for objective evidence on the latest two assessment cycles.

How to implement

Cloud Posture

CSPM. Run Wiz / Prisma / Defender for Cloud / Security Command Center over every account; auto-ticket findings above your accepted-risk threshold.

Code Review Testing

Pipeline. Require at least one human reviewer plus passing CI (lint, type, unit, security scan) before merge — protected branches enforce this.

Policy Management

Docs. Keep each policy in version-controlled Markdown alongside the code that implements it; ship a signed PDF snapshot at each annual review and link the SHA into the SoA.

Operational checklist

  • Information. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
  • Risk. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
  • Review. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
  • Security. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
  • Data. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
  • Scope: development, management.

Evidence to collect

  • Policy Document. A signed and version-controlled policy / standard / procedure document.
  • Infra Scan. Continuous infrastructure-posture telemetry — AWS Config, Azure Policy compliance, GCP Organisation Policy, Wiz / Prisma findings.

Signed policy or standard documents the safeguard. Focus: Policies for the development/procurement of information systems.

Common pitfalls

  • Treating CSPM findings as a backlog instead of a hot queue: findings older than the policy SLA accumulate until the auditor asks why.
  • Policies that no engineer has read; the version in Confluence drifts from the version that's actually being enforced.
  • CI security checks set to warn-only; the merge button is faster than the security feedback.

How it maps to other frameworks

Computed from shared tags, control component and key-operation subjects — handy when you are reconciling controls across an audit.

Related controls in BSI C5:2020

References

Topics: governance risksecure developmentcloud posturecode review testingpolicy management