---
name: framework-financial-services-controls-ac-5
title: AC-5 - Separation of Duties
description: 'Identify and document _[Assignment: organization-defined duties of individuals requiring separation]_.'
last-updated: 2025-02-26
---

> ## Documentation Index
> The table of contents for this documentation set is at https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/framework-financial-services-controls?format=markdown
> The index for all IBM Cloud docs is at: https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/llms.txt
> Use these files to discover more information as needed.

# AC-5 - Separation of Duties
{: #ac-5}

## Control requirements
{: #control-requirements}



### AC-5 (a)


Identify and document _[Assignment: organization-defined duties of individuals requiring separation]_.


### AC-5 (b)


Define system access authorizations to support separation of duties.






## Additional IBM Cloud for Financial Services specifications
{: #additional-ibm-cloud-for-financial-services-specifications}

Ensure segregation exists such that no one individual has the authority/ability to develop, compile and/or move object code from non-production environments into production environments.




## Implementation guidance
{: #implementation-guidance}

See the resources that follow to learn more about how to implement this control.


- [Organizing IBM Cloud accounts and resources](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/framework-financial-services?topic=framework-financial-services-shared-account-organization&format=markdown)


- [Consumer accounts for application provider workloads](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/framework-financial-services?topic=framework-financial-services-shared-account-consumer&format=markdown)


- [Access management in IBM Cloud](https://cloud.ibm.com/docs/framework-financial-services?topic=framework-financial-services-shared-account-access-management&format=markdown)






## NIST supplemental guidance
{: #nist-supplemental-guidance}

Separation of duties addresses the potential for abuse of authorized privileges and helps to reduce the risk of malevolent activity without collusion. Separation of duties includes dividing mission or business functions and support functions among different individuals or roles, conducting system support functions with different individuals, and ensuring that security personnel who administer access control functions do not also administer audit functions. Because separation of duty violations can span systems and application domains, organizations consider the entirety of systems and system components when developing policy on separation of duties. Separation of duties is enforced through the account management activities in AC-2, access control mechanisms in AC-3, and identity management activities in IA-2, IA-4, and IA-12.