Separation of Test and Operational Environments
Certification criterion
Development and test systems shall, in principle, be separated from operational systems in order to reduce the risk of unauthorized access to and modification of operational systems.
Key checkpoints
- Are the development and test systems of the information system separated from the operational system?
- Where separation of the development and operational environments is difficult for unavoidable reasons, are security measures such as mutual review, supervisory monitoring, change approval, and ensuring accountability in place?
Detailed explanation
※ This item is a relaxed certification criterion (Annex 7-2) under the special provisions for information security management system certification. The certification criterion and key checkpoints above are the official relaxed/adjusted text; the detailed explanation, related laws, evidence, and nonconformity examples below are the "ISMS-P Certification Criteria Guide" content for Annex 7 [2.8.3 Separation of Test and Operational Environments], which belongs to the same control domain (under the relaxed criteria, this content applies within the scope of the certification criterion and key checkpoints above).
The development and test systems of the information system shall be separated from the operational system.
- In principle, development and test systems and the operational system are configured separately.
- Access control measures between the development and test systems and the operational system are established and implemented so that developers cannot access the operational system unnecessarily.
Where separation of the development and operational environments is difficult for unavoidable reasons, security measures such as mutual review, supervisory monitoring, change approval, and ensuring accountability shall be provided.
- Where separation of the development and operational environments is unavoidably difficult due to reasons such as a very small organizational scale, a shortage of human resources, or system characteristics, appropriate compensating controls are applied to reduce the resulting security risks.
- Mutual review among personnel
- Change approval
- Monitoring and auditing by supervisors
- Backup and recovery measures, ensuring accountability, etc.
Related laws
No individual legal provision directly corresponding to this item is specified.
Evidence (examples)
- Network configuration diagram (including test environment configuration)
- Status of access control applied between the operational environment and the development/test environment
Nonconformity examples
- Where source code changes are performed directly in the operational environment without configuring a separate development environment and without valid justification or approval
- Where the development system and the operational system are unavoidably operated without separation, but records of mutual review, monitoring, etc. for this are missing
- Where a development system is configured separately, but access from the development environment to the operational environment is not controlled, so that developers can access the operational system unnecessarily by way of the development system