BSI C5:2020·Criterion DEV-10·critical·Component: Development & Change Management

What this control requires

Physically or logically separates production from test/development environments, preventing unauthorized access or malware spread. Avoids using production data in testing, ensuring cloud customer data confidentiality and system integrity.
— BSI C5:2020, Criterion DEV-10

In plain English

Physically or logically separates production from test/development environments, preventing unauthorized access or malware spread. In practice, this means you can prove you risk protection-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 critical in the source catalogue. Treat gaps here as production incidents in the risk register, not housekeeping.

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-10) and look for objective evidence on the latest two assessment cycles.

How to implement

Endpoint Protection

MDM. Make MDM enrollment a hard gate for device access (Intune compliance + Conditional Access, or Jamf + Okta device trust). Unmanaged devices simply don't get a session token.

EDR. Deploy CrowdStrike / SentinelOne / Defender for Endpoint to every server and laptop; alert on any host that stops sending telemetry for >24h.

Code Review Testing

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

Cloud Posture

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

Operational checklist

  • Risk. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
  • Review. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
  • Confidentiality. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
  • Protection. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
  • Data. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
  • Scope: protection, cloud customer data, development, environments, management.

Evidence to collect

  • Edr Scan. edr_scan evidence
  • Infra Scan. Continuous infrastructure-posture telemetry — AWS Config, Azure Policy compliance, GCP Organisation Policy, Wiz / Prisma findings.

EDR telemetry (CrowdStrike, Defender for Endpoint) confirms threat detection. Focus: Separation of environments.

Common pitfalls

  • Pilot MDM rollouts that quietly exclude executives or engineers; carving out the highest-risk users is the most common audit failure.
  • Treating CSPM findings as a backlog instead of a hot queue: findings older than the policy SLA accumulate until the auditor asks why.

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 riskedr xdrendpoint protectioncode review testingcloud posture