ISO/IEC 27001:2022 A.8.28 — Secure coding

What this control requires

Secure coding principles should be applied to software development.

In plain English

Secure coding principles should be applied to software development. In practice, this means you can prove you policy management-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 Technological controls, the assessor will trace your implementation back to the catalogue reference (Annex A A.8.28) and look for objective evidence on the latest two assessment cycles.

How to implement

Secure Development

Pipeline. Require code review, SAST (Semgrep / Snyk Code), SCA (Dependabot / Renovate), secret-scanning and IaC scanning in the merge pipeline.

Branch protection. Protected branches enforce reviews, signed commits and passing CI before merge; document the protection rules as the control evidence.

Code Review Testing

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

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.
• Management. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Secure. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Security. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Application. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Scope: management, security, software, development.

Evidence to collect

• Code Repo Scan. Source-control evidence — branch protection, required reviewers, CI status, SCA / SAST reports.
• Policy Document. A signed and version-controlled policy / standard / procedure document.

Secure coding standards in repositories and automated scans enforce coding practices.

Common pitfalls

• CI security checks set to warn-only; the merge button is faster than the security feedback.
• 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 3.13.13 — Mobile Code
• BSI C5:2020 DEV-08 — Version Control
• CIS Controls v8 16.9 — Train Developers in Application Security Concepts and Secure Coding
• SOC 2 (2017 TSC) CC1.3 — Organizational Structure and Reporting Lines
• NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 SA-11(9) — Interactive Application Security Testing

Related controls in ISO/IEC 27001:2022

• Annex A A.8.29 — Security testing in development and acceptance
• Annex A A.8.31 — Separation of development, test and production environments
• Annex A A.8.25 — Secure development life cycle
• Annex A A.8.4 — Access to source code
• Annex A A.8.27 — Secure system architecture and engineering principles
• Annex A A.8.19 — Installation of software on operational systems

References

• ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27 — ISO/IEC 27001:2022
• Catalogue identifier: Annex A A.8.28

Topics: application securitysecure developmentcode review testingdevsecopspolicy management