ISO/IEC 27001:2022 A.8.4 — Access to source code

What this control requires

Read and write access to source code, development tools and software libraries shall be appropriately managed.

In plain English

Read and write access to source code, development tools and software libraries shall be appropriately managed. In practice, this means you can prove you management 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.8.4) 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.

Operational checklist

• Management. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Identity. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
• Access. 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.
• Scope: management, security, source code, software, development.

Evidence to collect

• Code Repo Scan. Source-control evidence — branch protection, required reviewers, CI status, SCA / SAST reports.
• Identity Scan. IAM / IdP exports — Entra ID, Okta, IAM Identity Center, Workspace directory — showing accounts, roles, MFA state and last sign-in.
• Infra Scan. Continuous infrastructure-posture telemetry — AWS Config, Azure Policy compliance, GCP Organisation Policy, Wiz / Prisma findings.

Source control audit logs (GitHub, GitLab) and IAM analytics confirm only authorized engineers access repositories.

Common pitfalls

• CI security checks set to warn-only; the merge button is faster than the security feedback.

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 3.9.1 — Personnel Screening
• NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5 CM-11(2) — Software Installation With Privileged Status
• CIS Controls v8 2.5 — Allowlist Authorized Software
• SOC 2 (2017 TSC) CC1.5 — Accountability for Internal Control Responsibilities
• BSI C5:2020 DEV-07 — Logging of changes

Related controls in ISO/IEC 27001:2022

• Annex A A.8.23 — Web filtering
• Annex A A.8.28 — Secure coding
• Annex A A.5.2 — Information security roles and responsibilities
• Annex A A.8.2 — Privileged access rights
• Annex A A.5.15 — Access control
• Annex A A.5.16 — Identity management

References

• ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27 — ISO/IEC 27001:2022
• Catalogue identifier: Annex A A.8.4

Topics: identity accessapplication securityidentity managementaccess reviewprivileged accesssecure development