ISO/IEC 27001:2022 A.5.17 — Authentication information

What this control requires

Allocation and management of authentication information shall be controlled by a management process, including advising personnel on appropriate handling of authentication information.

In plain English

Allocation and management of authentication information shall be controlled by a management process, including advising personnel on appropriate handling of authentication information. In practice, this means you can prove you policy information-level controls on a defined cadence.

Why it matters

ISO 27001 certification depends on showing each Annex A control is either implemented or explicitly justified for exclusion in the Statement of Applicability (SoA). Certification bodies sample controls during surveillance audits, and a missing SoA entry — or implementation that doesn't match the SoA wording — is a finding.

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

An ISO 27001 lead auditor looks for: (1) an SoA entry covering the control with justification, (2) a documented procedure or policy implementing it, (3) records that prove the procedure runs (logs, tickets, training records) and (4) management-review evidence that effectiveness is monitored.

Within Organizational controls, the assessor will trace your implementation back to the catalogue reference (Annex A A.5.17) and look for objective evidence on the latest two assessment cycles.

How to implement

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

• Policy. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Information. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Management. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Identity. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Authentication. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Scope: information, management, authentication.

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: Authentication information.

Common pitfalls

• Policies that no engineer has read; the version in Confluence drifts from the version that's actually being enforced.

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.

• NIST SP 800-171 Rev. 3 3.5.11 — Authentication Feedback
• SOC 2 (2017 TSC) C1.2 — Confidential Information Disposal
• NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 IA-8(4) — Use Of Defined Profiles
• HIPAA (45 CFR Part 164) 164.312(d) — Person or Entity Authentication
• ISO/IEC 42001:2023 A.2.2 — Policies for the responsible development or use of AI systems

Related controls in ISO/IEC 27001:2022

• Annex A A.8.5 — Secure authentication
• Annex A A.5.13 — Labelling of information
• Annex A A.5.37 — Documented operating procedures
• Annex A A.5.1 — Policies for information security
• Annex A A.5.4 — Management responsibilities
• Annex A A.5.10 — Acceptable use of information and other associated assets

References

• ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27 — ISO/IEC 27001:2022
• Catalogue identifier: Annex A A.5.17

Topics: governance riskidentity managementpolicy management