CSA CCM (Cloud Controls Matrix)

Framework Name

‍CSA Cloud Controls Matrix (CCM), current version 4.1

Type

‍Voluntary

Region / Jurisdiction

‍Global

Enforcing Body / Certifying Party

‍Cloud Security Alliance (CSA), a nonprofit organization. Formal assurance is carried out through the CSA STAR program, with Level 2 certification or attestation performed by approved third-party assessment firms

Penalty / Consequence of Non-Compliance

‍No legal penalty. The consequence is commercial: many enterprise procurement teams expect to find a cloud vendor listed in CSA's public STAR registry before they'll close a purchase, so its absence can quietly stall or kill a deal

What It Is & Why It Matters

The Cloud Controls Matrix is a security control framework built specifically for cloud computing, covering 207 controls across 17 domains, from identity and access management to supply chain and interoperability. It's the foundation of CSA's broader STAR program, which offers three levels of assurance: a free, self-assessed Level 1 questionnaire, a more rigorous Level 2 that layers CCM controls on top of an existing ISO 27001 certification or SOC 2 attestation, and a continuous Level 3 self-assessment. Results at every level feed into a public, searchable registry, which is a meaningfully different model from most certifications on this list, since a buyer can check a provider's status directly rather than just taking their word for it.

It matters because it's the standard built for a problem generic frameworks like ISO 27001 or SOC 2 weren't originally designed to solve: cloud computing has its own specific risks, shared responsibility between provider and customer, multi-tenancy, elastic infrastructure, and CCM addresses those directly rather than as an afterthought. For a cloud service provider, especially one already certified against ISO 27001 or SOC 2, layering CCM and a STAR listing on top is often the fastest way to answer enterprise security questionnaires without repeating that work from scratch.

Who Needs It

• You are a cloud service provider and enterprise customers expect to find you in the public CSA STAR registry
• You already hold ISO 27001 certification or a SOC 2 report and want to extend it with cloud-specific assurance
• Your procurement or vendor risk team uses the STAR registry to vet cloud vendors before purchase
• You want a security questionnaire (the CAIQ) that's already structured around cloud-specific risks, rather than adapting a generic one