Inventory of information and other associated assets

What the control asks

The organization is to build and keep current an inventory of its information and other associated assets, with their owners recorded. Purpose: know what information and associated assets exist so they can be protected and given suitable owners. Guidance: identify the assets, judge their security importance and record them in dedicated or existing inventories that are accurate, current, consistent and reconciled with each other, using periodic checks against reality or automatic updates whenever an asset is installed, changed or removed; record location where relevant. The inventory may be a set of dynamic lists kept by different functions (information, hardware, software, virtual machines, facilities, personnel, competence, capabilities, records), each asset classified in line with the information it carries (5.12), at a level of detail that suits the organization, accepting that short-lived items such as individual VM instances may not be listed. Ownership: each asset is given an individual or group owner and a classification, promptly on creation or transfer into the organization, and reassigned when owners leave or move. Owner duties across the life cycle: see that assets are inventoried, classified and protected; review the classification periodically; list and link the supporting components of technology assets (databases, storage, software components); set acceptable use requirements (5.10); make sure access restrictions match the classification, work and are reviewed; ensure secure deletion or disposal and removal from the inventory; take part in managing risks to their assets; and support the people who manage their information. Other information: inventories also serve health and safety, insurance, finance, risk, audit, vulnerability management, incident response and recovery; custodians can do daily tasks but the delegator stays accountable; grouping assets by service makes the service owner accountable; ISO/IEC 19770-1 and ISO 55001 give further detail.

Purpose in the standard’s terms, in our words: Identifies the organization's information and associated assets so they can be protected and properly owned.

Attribute values in one line: Preventive; Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability; Identify; Asset management; Governance and ecosystem, Protection.

The five attribute values

These are the published values for this control, from ISO/IEC 27002:2022 clause 4.2 and Annex A Table A.1. Where your own value differs, record the difference and the reason in the same row rather than replacing the published value.

Evidence an auditor asks for

The attribute is a claim about how the control behaves. The evidence is what proves it operates. Keep both, and keep them together.

• The asset inventories (information, hardware, software, virtual, facilities and others) with owner, classification and location fields populated
• Reconciliation records between inventories and discovery tooling, or evidence that installs, changes and removals update the inventory automatically
• A procedure for assigning ownership on creation or acquisition and reassigning it when owners leave or change role
• Records of periodic classification and access restriction reviews carried out by asset owners
• Dependency mapping linking technology assets to their supporting components such as databases, storage and software
• Disposal records showing assets were securely removed and deleted from the inventory

Where audits commonly find gaps

• The inventory covers hardware only and omits information assets, cloud services and software components
• Owners listed are people who have left or generic team names with no accountable individual
• The inventory drifts from reality because no reconciliation or automated update exists
• Disposed assets remain in the inventory, or live assets never entered it

What ISO/IEC 27028 changes for this control

It carries a single control type, preventive, which sets what the evidence has to prove. It contributes no detect function, so a control set built from this row alone would not show detection. Its earlier numbering (08.1.1, 08.1.2) is kept in the register so an older audit file can still be traced. It serves more than one security domain, which is why a domain count taken by row understates the view.

The guidance expands how the five values are used; it does not change the control or add a requirement. A register that carries the values and the evidence can answer the attribute question for this control without a new document. A register that does not can add the columns at the next SoA version, with an owner and a review date.

Controls that share its values

• 5.10 Acceptable use of information and other associated assets
• 5.19 Information security in supplier relationships
• 5.2 Information security roles and responsibilities

Read the five attributes All 93 controls