# IAM-06 Privileged Access Rights

- Domain: IAM – Identity and Access Management
- Since C5:2020: changed (formerly IDM-06)
- Web page: https://c5.patrickscheid.de/en/iam-06/

**Supplementary information:**

Privileged access rights in the sense of the criterion are those that enable personnel of the cloud service provider to perform any of the following activities:

1. Read or write access to the cloud service customers data processed, stored or transmitted in the cloud service, unless such data is encrypted or the encryption can be deactivated for access by the cloud service provider; and
2. Changes to the operational and/or security configuration of the system components in the production environment, in particular the starting, stopping, deleting or deactivating of system components, if this can affect the confidentiality, integrity or availability of the cloud service customers data (also indirectly, e.g. by deactivating the logging and monitoring of security-relevant events).

## Basic criterion

### IAM-06.01B

Privileged access rights for internal and external personnel as well as technical users of the cloud service provider are assigned and changed in accordance with the policy for managing identities and access rights (cf. IAM-01) or a separate specific policy.

### IAM-06.02B

Privileged access rights are personalised, limited in time according to a risk assessment and assigned as necessary for the execution of tasks ('need-to-know-principle').

### IAM-06.03B

Anonymous technical users are only accessed through authentication with a personalised identitiy.

### IAM-06.04B

Activities of users with privileged access rights are logged in order to detect any misuse of privileged access in suspicious cases.

### IAM-06.05B

The logged information is automatically monitored for defined events that may indicate misuse.

### IAM-06.06B

When such an event is identified, the responsible personnel is automatically informed so that they can timely assess whether misuse has occurred and take corresponding action.

**Supplementary information:**

Responsible personnel for events that may indicate misuse can be e.g. the personnel of the cloud service provider's security operations centre.

Misused privileged access rights can be treated e.g. as a security incident, cf. SIM-01.

### IAM-06.07B

In the event of proven misuse of privileged access rights, disciplinary measures are taken in accordance with HR-04.

### IAM-06.08B

For containers and images, activities of users with privileged access are logged according to OPS-10.

### IAM-06.09B

Access to the cloud service provider's administration interfaces requires the use of multi-factor authentication.

## Additional criterion

### IAM-06.01AC (additional, complementing)

The cloud service provider maintains an inventory of the identities with privileged access rights under its responsibility. This inventory is kept up-to-date.

### IAM-06.02AC (additional, complementing)

The cloud service provider maintains a list of the personnel that is responsible for an identity assigned to a non-human entity within the cloud service provider's scope of responsibility. This list is reviewed every six months and in case of significant changes to the cloud service.

**Supplementary information:**

If a review is caused by significant changes to the cloud service, only the parts of the list that are affected by the change need to be included in the review.

### IAM-06.03AC (additional, complementing)

For privileged users, phishing-resistant multi-factor authentication such as FIDO2 security keys or comparable mechanisms using public key cryptography and domain binding are implemented.

### IAM-06.04AC (additional, complementing)

Privileged access rights are enforced through a privileged access management (PAM) solution with support for 'just-in-time' elevation and 'just-enough' access.

## Changes since C5:2020

From BSI's C5:2026 changelog.

**Basic criterion:**

Added requirement regarding access to anonymous technical users.

Added requirement regarding privileged access to containers and images.

Added requirement regarding the use of multi-factor authentication for accessing administration interfaces.

**Additional criterion:**

Additional criterion newly included.

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Source: BSI C5:2026, machine-readable edition v1.0.1, © Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) 2026, reproduced unchanged under CC BY-ND 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/). Change notes: BSI C5:2026 Changelog, © BSI 2026, CC BY-ND 4.0. Unofficial presentation, not affiliated with BSI.