CIS Controls v8 14.9 — Conduct Role-Specific Security Awareness and Skills Training

What this control requires

Conduct role-specific security awareness and skills training. Example implementations include secure system administration courses for IT professionals, OWASP® Top 10 vulnerability awareness and prevention training for web application developers, and advanced social engineering awareness training for high-profile roles.

In plain English

Conduct role-specific security awareness and skills training. In practice, this means you can prove you protect vulnerability-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 high. Auditors expect a named owner, a remediation SLA, and a tooling artefact that evidences continuous operation.

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 Protect, the assessor will trace your implementation back to the catalogue reference (Control 14.9) and look for objective evidence on the latest two assessment cycles.

How to implement

1. Write a short policy stating intent, scope and named owner.
2. Encode it as a platform guardrail — SCP, Azure Policy initiative, Organisation Policy, or repository policy.
3. Wire a monitoring signal that catches drift (CSPM rule, SIEM rule, scheduled query, Workspace alert) and ticket it.
4. Review on a documented cadence and capture the review in the risk register or compliance tracker.

Operational checklist

• Protect. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Conduct. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Scope: vulnerability, identity management.

Evidence to collect

• Identity Scan. IAM / IdP exports — Entra ID, Okta, IAM Identity Center, Workspace directory — showing accounts, roles, MFA state and last sign-in.

Identity analytics (Okta, SailPoint, Access Analyzer) demonstrates least-privilege. Focus: Conduct Role-Specific Security Awareness and Skills Training.

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.

• SOC 2 (2017 TSC) CC6.2 — Access Provisioning
• ISO/IEC 27001:2022 A.8.2 — Privileged access rights
• NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 RA-5(5) — Privileged Access
• ISO/IEC 27701:2025 A.3.8 — Identity management
• NIST SP 800-171 Rev. 3 3.2.2 — Role-Based Training

Related controls in CIS Controls v8

• Control 9.2 — Use DNS Filtering Services
• Control 5.6 — Centralize Account Management
• Control 6.5 — Require MFA for Administrative Access
• Control 6.1 — Establish an Access Granting Process
• Control 6.2 — Establish an Access Revoking Process
• Control 6.7 — Centralize Access Control

References

• Center for Internet Security — CIS Controls v8
• Catalogue identifier: Control 14.9

Topics: identity accessawareness trainingprivileged accessidentity managementaccess reviewsecurity training