C5 Field Guideunofficial

DEV · Procurement, Development and Modification of Information Systems

DEV-12 Separation of Environments

2 sub-criteria

Changed since C5:2020 · formerly DEV-10

Basic criterion

Specified which data types the criterion applies to.

Added option for cloud service customers to explicitly approve the use of their data in test and development environments.

Added requirements regarding regulating the reuse of cryptographic secrets, private keys and other secrets.

Wording in C5:2020

Basic criterion

Production environments are physically or logically separated from test or development environments to prevent unauthorised access to cloud customer data, the spread of malware, or changes to system components. Data contained in the production environments is not used in test or development environments in order not to compromise their confidentiality.

All changes since C5:2020

Basic criterion

DEV-12.01B

Production environments are physically or logically separated from test or development environments to prevent unauthorised access to cloud service customer data, the spread of malware, or unintended changes to system components. Cloud service customer data contained in the production environments is not used in test or development environments, unless explicitly approved by cloud service customers, in order not to compromise their confidentiality.

DEV-12.02B

Unless unavoidable, the cloud service provider does not reuse the cryptographic secret and private keys and other secrets used in production environments in other, non-production environments. Any unavoidable reuse of the cryptographic secret and private keys between production and non-production environments is documented and justified in accordance with the process for handling exceptions (cf. SP-03) and the risk management procedures (cf. OIS-07).

BSI text from C5:2026 and its changelog: © Federal Office for Information Security 2026, reproduced unchanged under CC BY-ND 4.0. Unofficial site, not affiliated with BSI. Licence and sources