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Deciphering ISO 27001 Compliance

With so many organizations now relying on the internet and digital networks, it has become prudent to have in place a comprehensive cybersecurity framework and network regulating policies and standards. The policies should be designed keeping in mind global standardization processes as a pivot. ISO is one such globally recognized body that stands for International-Organization for Standardization and is known for publishing various compliance and regulating standards such as ISO 270001.

What is ISO 27001 compliance?

The ISO 27001 set of standards were published in the year 2005 and since its launch, the regulating body has brought many updates looking at the changing business needs. It includes a set of standards for data security and risk management. It provides a requirements checklist for businesses on what to include in their information security model. Risk management is a major aspect of ISO 270001, ensuring the organization understands where their strength and weakness lie in regards to information. Understanding and then implementing ISO in an organization is a sign of reliability and security.

How does the ISO 27001 compliance work and its categories?

The primary focus of the ISO 27001 is to protect the integrity, confidentiality and availability of information. This is carried out by a risk assessment where the company lists all measures and controls that are to be implemented in a document called the statement of applicability. The list is analyzed with the security teams for potential risks and based on the analysis, new security measures and policies are implemented. Some of the categories of audit controlled by ISO 27001 are:

Information Security Policies
Human Resource Security
Asset Management
Access Control
Cryptography
Environmental and Physical Security
Operations Security
Communication Security
Supplier Relationship
Compliance

Companies of all types and sizes must recognize that setting a data security team won’t be sufficient. It is important that they imbibe an Information Security Management System(ISMS) which helps companies include industry-grade security by implementing several regulating policies such as ISO 27001. Some of the benefits of implementing ISMS systems are:

Ensuring that the organization complies with legal requirements and standards
Achieve a competitive advantage for data security
Reduce your data security costs
Develop a better and scalable organizations methodology with no stress of data being compromised

To avoid confusion between the set of standards in ISO 27001 family they are labelled with numbers which specify facets of managing your data security management measures. Some of these standard documents are:

ISO 27001: This is the central standard in the ISO 27000 series, explaining best practice for information security management. This is important to remember, as ISO 27001 is the only standard in the series that organizations can be audited and certified against
ISO 27002: This is a supplementary standard that discusses the information security controls that organizations might choose to implement based on Risk Assessment
ISO 27005: This standard gives guidance to the companies on how to conduct an information security risk assessment in accordance with the requirements of ISO 27001. It implies a continual information risk management process.
ISO 27006: This standard document provides assistance on how to create a checklist of requirements for organizations conducting auditing and the resource certification of their information security management systems.
ISO 27017 and ISO 27018: These relate to protecting sensitive information on the cloud. ISO 27017 is a code of practice, providing additional information about controls around information stored in the cloud. ISO 27018 adds additional consideration for Personally Identifiable Information stored in the cloud
ISO 27701: This standard gives guidance on what organizations must do when implementing a Privacy Information Management System (PIMS)

ISO 27001 is a family of a complex body of standards which govern the businesses. Regardless of the size of your company or the resources that you operate with, keeping your organization in compliance with ISO 27001 can be a huge win. However, it is a challenging task for a company starting on the ISO 27001 implementation journey. Nuage provides the industry expertise to assist you with the implementation and review process. The Nuage team has experience working with numerous clients in transforming their organization compliance policies to the best in industry.

So if you want to bring in the much-needed compliance change in your company contact us at info@nuagebiz.tech.