ISO/IEC 27017 FAQ Cloud Admin Access

Treat Cloud Admin Access as privileged access to cloud services and manage it like any other high-risk administrative capability. In practice, define the administrator role, restrict it to named people or roles, require approval before access is granted, and keep a record of what the administrator is allowed to do.

For cloud security work, write the provider/customer split before requesting evidence; the same control can be provider-owned, customer-owned, or shared depending on the service model and contract. This keeps the answer useful in audits, customer reviews, incidents, supplier reviews, and management review.

The evidence should show the process operating. For this artifact, the strongest record usually includes a shared-responsibility matrix, cloud service agreement, provider assurance, customer configuration evidence, access reviews, logs, and change records.

Avoid evidence that only repeats a requirement. A reviewer should be able to see the actual owner, date, system, supplier, AI system, service, incident, risk, or control sample behind the answer.

The person who can fund, operate, and correct the process should own the decision; governance should review consistency and exceptions.

For high-impact changes, approval should include the teams affected by the evidence: security, privacy, resilience, supplier management, AI governance, legal, risk, or business service owners as relevant.

Review it at planned intervals and whenever the underlying scope, service, supplier, control, risk, AI system, personal data flow, incident process, or customer commitment changes.

A stale record is worse than a short record. If the facts change, update the evidence and mark what changed so the next reviewer can trust the page.