ISO/IEC 27001:2022 A.5.20 — Addressing information security within supplier agreements

What this control requires

Relevant information security requirements shall be established and agreed with each supplier based on the type of supplier relationship.

In plain English

Relevant information security requirements shall be established and agreed with each supplier based on the type of supplier relationship. In practice, this means you can prove you information information security-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.5.20) 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

• Information. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Management. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Security. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Scope: information security, management, security requirements.

Evidence to collect

• Vendor Risk Management. vendor_risk_management evidence

Third-party risk management evidence (assessments, contracts, due diligence) shows supplier oversight. Focus: Addressing information security within supplier agreements.

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) CC9.2 — Vendor Risk Management
• BSI C5:2020 OIS-03 — Interfaces and Dependencies
• NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 CP-2(7) — Coordinate With External Service Providers
• ISO/IEC 42001:2023 A.10.2 — Allocation of responsibilities
• NIST SP 800-171 Rev. 3 3.16.2 — Unsupported System Components

Related controls in ISO/IEC 27001:2022

• Annex A A.5.19 — Information security in supplier relationships
• Annex A A.5.22 — Monitoring, review and change management of supplier services
• Annex A A.5.21 — Managing information security in the ICT supply chain
• Annex A A.5.23 — Information security for use of cloud services
• Annex A A.8.30 — Outsourced development
• Annex A A.5.1 — Policies for information security

References

• ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27 — ISO/IEC 27001:2022
• Catalogue identifier: Annex A A.5.20

Topics: vendor riskvendor managementsupply chain securitythird party monitoring