IoT Compliance and Audit-Readiness Checklist

This document is a checklist designed to assist organizations in transitioning from viewing compliance as a policy to treating it as an engineered system. It provides a structured approach to evaluate current architecture or assess technical partners across various critical areas. The checklist is divided into six sections, each with specific goals and criteria. Section 1 focuses on identity and access governance, aiming to eliminate unauthorized access. Section 2 addresses data protection and key sovereignty, emphasizing the importance of securing data at rest and in transit. Section 3 covers logging and forensic traceability, ensuring accountability in distributed systems. Section 4 discusses resilient lifecycle management, particularly for maintaining compliance over extended device lifespans. Section 5 highlights network and perimeter defense strategies to minimize risks from compromised nodes. Finally, Section 6 outlines incident response and liability management to limit exposure during breaches. The checklist concludes with a self-assessment to determine audit readiness.