ISO 27001 · Annex A controls · 2 min read

ISO 27001 A.8.2: privileged access, explained for startups

What A.8.2 asks of a small company, and what an auditor samples.

Tightly control and monitor accounts that hold powerful admin permissions. Limit who has these rights and watch how they are used.

Why it exists: to limit administrator access to the people who need it.

A.8.2 Privileged access rights

Admin access is limited to the people who need it and checked regularly. What proves it: a list of admin accounts with the reason for each, reviewed on a schedule.

A certification auditor samples admin list review. A file that usually does the job: a signed list of admin accounts in your cloud provider, identity provider and code host.

How to put it in place

Each step leaves a record, and the record is what the auditor samples rather than the step itself. Inside Polara, the control card for A.8.2 walks you through it in this order.

Export admin users from your cloud provider, identity provider and code host.
Remove anyone who does not need it.
Sign and date the list and repeat every quarter.

The free ISO 27001 readiness assessment asks one question that evidences it:

How often do you review who has access to your systems, including admin access?

Policies, connectors and the SOC 2 overlap

In the ISO 27001 policy pack, the Access Control Policy covers A.8.2. An auditor reads the policy for the rule, then samples the records to see the rule was followed.

Connected systems that pull evidence for it:

Amazon Web Services, IAM roles: privileged roles and the trust policies that grant them.
Okta, Admin role assignments: the users who hold an Okta admin role, and which role each one holds.
Microsoft Entra ID, Privileged role assignments: directory role assignments, including who holds Global Administrator.

The same evidence counts toward SOC 2. The Trust Services criteria that cover this ground: CC6.1, logical access and CC6.3, least privilege.

Technological controls

A.8.2 is one of the 34 technological controls in Annex A. The controls built into your systems: access, devices, malware, vulnerabilities, backups, logging, networks, encryption and secure development. Exports and settings screenshots prove most of them.

Nearby controls in the same theme:

Before it: A.8.1, laptops and phones. After it: A.8.3, restricting access to data. Every control, by theme, is on the Annex A controls page.

Questions

What does ISO 27001 A.8.2 require?

Tightly control and monitor accounts that hold powerful admin permissions. Limit who has these rights and watch how they are used.

What evidence does an auditor want for A.8.2?

A list of admin accounts with the reason for each, reviewed on a schedule. A certification auditor samples admin list review.

Get ready for ISO 27001 certification.

The readiness assessment is free, with no payment and no card. ISO 27001 is part of Constellation, at $10,800 a year: everything in Orbit plus the management system, the policies, the evidence and the management review for ISO 27001, and your SOC 2 Type 2 audit is included in every contract year. You contract the certification body directly.

The internal audit is priced separately: Polara arranges it with an independent internal auditor from our partner network who works in the platform, and quotes it for your company.

Take the free assessment

Polara Labs is not a certification body. Certification audits are performed by independent accredited certification bodies.