ISO 27001:2013 – Information security management systems – Requirements

ISO 27001 is one of the most popular international standards published by ISO. Adopted from its earlier form BS 7799, a British standard, ISO published it as ISO 27001 in 2005. Today it is in its second edition.

ISO 27001 offers a framework for developing an Information Security Management System (ISMS) for an organization that wants to protect its information assets from all possible risks. Any type of an organization can refer to this framework and develop its own information security management system. Once all applicable requirements are addressed, the organization can get this information security management system certified from a third party certification body.

Most organizations develop an information security management system because –

  • There is a need to assure their customers that the organization has appropriate processes, systems and practices in place to ensure confidentiality, integrity and availability of information. A certification to ISO 27001 will provide that confidence to the organization’s customers.
  • The organizations need to fulfil compliance needs in terms of applicable statutory and regulatory requirements pertaining to privacy and data protection. An application of ISO 27001 offers a framework to the organization where such statutory and regulatory requirements are addressed within the internal control mechanism.

ISO 27001 helps the organizations build a complete model in order to assure protection of information assets as well as for meeting compliance needs.

Benefits

The benefits that an organization may get out of the application of ISO 27001 and its certification are mostly based on the management’s intentions of selecting this standard. However, following examples provide some direction about what the ISO 27001 can give the organizations in terms of its benefits 

“It is our practice to understand the benefits that our customers want by applying ISO 27001 and then design the system in a way to help the organization to realize these benefits”.

 An ISO 27001 certified organization is considered to be more reliable than the other similar organizations that are not certified. The certification is globally accepted and is gained by large as well as small organizations hence bring an equality in terms its positioning of brand reliability per say. The certification adds up to the brand recognition.

If your organization operates in specific sectors like Banking or Telecom, then regulators mandate having information security controls. There are many organizations who give preference to ISO 27001 certified suppliers. For example, in US as well as European markets, customers give preference to suppliers having demonstrated controls for data protection. So, if your organization is certified to ISO 27001, you may be able to acquire contracts with such organizations that specify such criteria. Non-certified organizations lose out on such opportunities. The certification to ISO 27001 gives a competitive advantage.

Having ISO 27001 based security controls in place, your organization will manage information with a specific focus on confidentiality, integrity and availability, thus bringing in better governance of that information. Information being greatest asset in today’s interconnected world, this kind of governance offers even better incentives to the organization in terms of timely availability of data for decision making.

 Most countries in the world today are becoming aware of importance of data protection and their Governments are enforcing data protection and privacy legislations. The organizations who comply efficiently to such legislation will be able to prevent legal actions.

Interested parties of an organization include its customers, owners, employees, suppliers, bankers, etc. All these have certain expectations in terms of the continuity of the organization. Due to the improved governance and security of the information after application of ISO 27001 based information management system, the organization’s ability to respond to incidents becomes more and more effective. As a result the trust level and confidence of all these interested parties get a boost.

Applicability

The ISO 27001 standard applies to all types of organizations including commercial organizations, non-profit organizations, Governments, Educational Institutes, NGOs, etc.

Browse through the solutions  for different industries based on our experience of some of the types of organizations that we have worked with in the past.

Roadmap to certification

ProcessLOGIX helps the customers from initiation of the information security management system development till certification to ISO 27001.

Following 12-step process describes the high level approach to implementation and certification