ISO 27001 – Information Security Management System (ISMS)

ISO 27001 – Information Security Management System (ISMS)

ISO 27001 (formally known as ISO/IEC 27001:2005) is a specification for an information security management system (ISMS). An ISMS is a framework of policies and procedures that includes all legal, physical and technical controls involved in an organisation's information risk management processes. According to its documentation, ISO 27001 was developed to "provide a model for establishing, implementing, operating, monitoring, reviewing, maintaining and improving an information security management system."

ISO 27001 uses a topdown, risk-based approach and is technology-neutral. The specification defines a six-part planning process:

·         Define a security policy.

·         Define the scope of the ISMS.

·         Conduct a risk assessment.

·         Manage identified risks.

·         Select control objectives and controls to be implemented.

·         Prepare a statement of applicability.

The specification includes details for documentation, management responsibility, internal audits, continual improvement, and corrective and preventive action. The standard requires cooperation among all sections of an organisation. The 27001 standard does not mandate specific information security controls, but it provides a checklist of controls that should be considered in the accompanying code of practice, ISO/IEC 27002:2005. This second standard describes a comprehensive set of information security control objectives and a set of generally accepted good practice security controls.

ISO 27002 contains 12 main sections:

1. Risk assessment
2. Security policy
3. Organization of information security
4. Asset management
5. Human resources security
6. Physical and environmental security
7. Communications and operations management
8. Access control
9. Information systems acquisition, development and maintenance
10. Information security incident management
11. Business continuity management
12. Compliance

Organisations are required to apply these controls appropriately in line with their specific risks. Third-party accredited certification is recommended for ISO 27001 conformance.

Other standards being developed in the 27000 family are:

27003 – implementation guidance.

27004 - an information security management measurement standard suggesting metrics to help improve the effectiveness of an ISMS.

27005 – an information security risk management standard. (Published in 2008)

27006 - a guide to the certification or registration process for accredited ISMS certification or registration bodies. (Published in 2007)

27007 – ISMS auditing guideline.

Changes from the 2005 standard

The 2013 standard has a completely different structure than the 2005 standard which had five clauses. The 2013 standard puts more emphasis on measuring and evaluating how well an organization's ISMS is performing,[8] and there is a new section on outsourcing, which reflects the fact that many organizations rely on third parties to provide some aspects of IT. It does not emphasize the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle that 27001:2005 did. Other continuous improvement processes like Six Sigma's DMAIC method can be implemented.[9] More attention is paid to the organizational context of information security, and risk assessment has changed.[10] Overall, 27001:2013 is designed to fit better alongside other management standards such as ISO 9000 and ISO/IEC 20000, and it has more in common with them.[11]

New controls:

A.6.1.5 Information security in project management

A.12.6.2 Restrictions on software installation

A.14.2.1 Secure development policy

A.14.2.5 Secure system engineering principles

A.14.2.6 Secure development environment

A.14.2.8 System security testing

A.15.1.1 Information security policy for supplier relationships

A.15.1.3 Information and communication technology supply chain

A.16.1.4 Assessment of and decision on information security events

A.16.1.5 Response to information security incidents

A.17.2.1 Availability of information processing facilities

Controls

Clause 6.1.3 describes how an organization can respond to risks with a risk treatment plan; an important part of this is choosing appropriate controls. A very important change in the new version of ISO 27001 is that there is now no requirement to use the Annex A controls to manage the information security risks. The previous version insisted ("shall") that controls identified in the risk assessment to manage the risks must have been selected from Annex A. Thus almost every risk assessment ever completed under the old version of ISO 27001 used Annex A controls but an increasing number of risk assessments in the new version do not use Annex A as the control set. This enables the risk assessment to be simpler and much more meaningful to the organization and helps considerably with establishing a proper sense of ownership of both the risks and controls. This is the main reason for this change in the new version.

There are now 114 controls in 14 clauses and 35 control categories; the 2005 standard had 133 controls in 11 groups.

A.5: Information security policies (2 controls)

A.6: Organization of information security (7 controls)

A.7: Human resource security - 6 controls that are applied before, during, or after employment

A.8: Asset management (10 controls)

A.9: Access control (14 controls)

A.10: Cryptography (2 controls)

A.11: Physical and environmental security (15 controls)

A.12: Operations security (14 controls)

A.13: Communications security (7 controls)

A.14: System acquisition, development and maintenance (13 controls)

A.15: Supplier relationships (5 controls)

A.16: Information security incident management (7 controls)

A.17: Information security aspects of business continuity management (4 controls)

A.18: Compliance; with internal requirements, such as policies, and with external requirements, such as laws (8 controls)

The new and updated controls reflect changes to technology affecting many organizations - for instance, cloud computing- but as stated above it is possible to use and be certified to ISO/IEC 27001:2013 and not use any of these controls.

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