CIS Controls v8 11.2 — Perform Automated Backups

What this control requires

Perform automated backups of in-scope enterprise assets. Run backups weekly, or more frequently, based on the sensitivity of the data.

In plain English

Perform automated backups of in-scope enterprise assets. In practice, this means you can prove you perform data-level controls on a defined cadence.

Why it matters

The CIS Controls are an industry-vetted, prioritised defence: skipping a safeguard widens the attack surface that the safeguards above and below it assume is closed. Audit frameworks (FedRAMP, PCI DSS, HIPAA) all cite CIS as evidence of due care.

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 CIS-aligned reviewer wants to see (a) which Implementation Group you are targeting, (b) a documented owner for the safeguard, and (c) a tooling or process artefact (config, scan output, ticket) that proves the safeguard runs on the cadence the control demands.

Within Recover, the assessor will trace your implementation back to the catalogue reference (Control 11.2) and look for objective evidence on the latest two assessment cycles.

How to implement

Incident Response

Runbook. Maintain a runbook keyed by incident type with named roles (IC, comms, scribe), an out-of-band comms channel, and a 72-hour timeline for external notification.

Tabletop. Run a quarterly tabletop exercise (ransomware, insider, supply-chain) and feed gaps back into the runbook.

Operational checklist

• Perform. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Scope: data, response, enterprise.

Evidence to collect

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

Workflow metrics (ServiceNow, Jira) show approvals and remediation. Focus: Perform Automated Backups.

Common pitfalls

• Runbooks that name a role but no person, or list a paging channel that no longer exists.

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.

• GDPR Article 49 — Derogations for specific situations
• BSI C5:2020 AM-04 — Decommissioning of Hardware
• SOC 2 (2017 TSC) CC7.4 — Incident Response
• ISO/IEC 27001:2022 A.5.8 — Information security in project management
• NIST SP 800-171 Rev. 3 3.3.6 — Audit Record Reduction and Report Generation

Related controls in CIS Controls v8

• Control 11.5 — Test Data Recovery
• Control 17.9 — Establish and Maintain Security Incident Thresholds
• Control 17.4 — Establish and Maintain an Incident Response Process
• Control 5.3 — Disable Dormant Accounts
• Control 17.8 — Conduct Post-Incident Reviews
• Control 17.7 — Conduct Routine Incident Response Exercises

References

• Center for Internet Security — CIS Controls v8
• Catalogue identifier: Control 11.2

Topics: governance riskchange managementincident response