Background of ISO 27000
During the past few decades of the digital era, we have benefited greatly from the exposure to information network, especially the Internet. However, as cyber-attacks became the new norm and more organizations suffered from downfalls of their information systems, we came to the realization that information security needs to be taken more seriously than ever before.
Not only cyber-attacks have raised governmental level security concerns on global scale (see the official website about India’s governing BJP being hacked), they also became the sticking point of digital transformation for organizations, especially for those dealing with taxes, finances, sensitive personal information, as well as other critical data. Businesses nowadays need to start focusing on information security, and pave their way to success by protecting data from any breach, misuse or theft.
One common misconception is that the scope of information security is only limited to computer systems and digital data storage. Nonetheless, the depth and breadth of information security are much larger than that, and are often left unaddressed in many organizations’ risk assessment processes and risk management frameworks. That is why many companies often skip the elaboration and documentation of their data policies, including data collection, storage, distribution, sharing and disclosure policies.
Fortunately, ISO 27000 recognizes these potential issues, and provides effective control mechanisms to overcome and mitigate them.
ISO 27000 at a Glance
ISO 27000 is a series of standards that were designed to safeguard organizations’ information assets. ISO 27000 also gives an overview of an Information Security Management System (ISMS), defining and describing the logically organized set of processes that guide organizations to align their business goals and objectives with their information security.
More precisely, ISO 27000 guides organizations throughout their information security risk management, from formulation-to-execution, supervision, adjustment, evaluation and maintenance, to ensure that sensitive information assets (e.g. financial, intellectual, personal and behavioral data) are secured whether they are first-hand or secondary data.
Why ISO 27000?
Information security risk management is inevitable given the fact that there are thousands of security threats every day to your information systems. Faced with potential financial and reputational loss caused by cyber-attacks, organizations need to keep a wary eye on all the known and unknown risks – if you have never been attacked before, it does not mean that you cannot or will never become a victim.
ISO 27000 can bring peace of mind by raising information security awareness, introducing effective and trustworthy measures and fostering a culture of security. With the help of ISO 27000, management will have more confidence when optimizing their information security reserves towards business goals. Being ISO 27000 certified will also improve an organization’s overall quality, as well as portray a positive corporate image and business etiquette.
ISO 27000 Compliance Challenge
Although ISO 27000 is very comprehensive with quite straight-forward applicability, organizations still have some major difficulties when implementing ISMS due to the ever-evolving global environment. Following are some of those challenges which are worth mentioning:
Pervasive Network Systems
Insufficient Knowledgeable Workforce
Conventional E-Commerce Practices
Emergent Information Security Discipline
Enterprise Risk Management Complexity
Changing Regulatory Landscape
BPM for ISO 27000 Series
BPM offers a strong grip to ISO 27000 over process control. Using BPM to pinpoint vulnerabilities of information security systems throughout processes can help organizations evaluate their risks in a more precise and systematic manner, formulate an all-around risk management plan, identify all critical steps and responsible personnel for implementation, and generate accurate audit trails throughout data lifecycle.
Some prominent benefits of using BPM for ISMS are:
Agile Change Management
Comprehensive Risks & Controls
How Interfacing Can Help
Our software supports:
1. Comprehensive GRC Framework
- Document processes to meet ISO/IEC 27000 regulation, as well as other regulatory requirements such as Sarbanes Oxley, Basel III, IMF, HIPPA, FDA, ISO 15000 and more
- Associate rules, resources, risks, controls, documents, performance to processes and visualize all touchpoints in different views
- Total risk lifecycle management with comprehensive risks scoring and matrices
- Complete audit trails with version stamping & approval history
- Integrated control management within COSO ERM framework
- Plan, schedule, execute, review, monitor & report audits
- BCM (business continuity management) & business continuity planning
- Process/disaster recovery plan
- Digital SOPs to standardize and optimize your operational workflow
2. Secure & Social Collaboration
- Engage employees through real-time discussion forums
- Raise improvement requests, answer and vote for changes
- Automated review scheduling
- Serial & parallel approval cycles assignment
- Monitor & manage deadline with notifications
- Read confirmations & E-signature
- Information sharing via one-click URLs
- Analytics integration for detailed EPC usage tracking
- Localization feature for users in different teams and locations
- Mobile responsiveness allowing collaboration on-site and on-the-go
- Role-based access control (RASCI-VS & CRUD matrices) to engage internal & external stakeholders
- Support multimedia preview directly within the EPC to improve efficiency & user adoption rates
- Customize dashboards & widgets on the Homepage
- Process synchronization for multi-user collaboration
3. Continuous improvement
- Process maturity assessment & on-going monitoring
- Automated revision cycles & recurrent notifications to maintain all your data and processes up-to-date
- Improvement lifecycle historic
- Version comparison to track any modifications in the system
- Localization feature to manage associated processes in different regions
- Detailed analysis & customize reporting
- Performance management with top-down & bottom-up traceability to align strategy to execution
- Support multiple corporate strategies including Lean, Six Sigma, CMMI…
Interfacing’s Consulting Services for ISO 27000
Our consulting & IT services cater for each step of ISO 27000, including identification of compliance requirements, assessment of current state of compliance, prioritization of compliance tasks and corrective actions, estimation of the costs of total compliance vs. non-compliance, fund allocation and initiation of tasks, continuous monitoring and management of compliance tasks, and more.
Use Interfacing’s compliance management support to implement your ISO 27000 programs, accelerate changes, and become a qualified ISO 27000 practitioner! Discover how we helped numerous companies succeed here.
Learn how we can help you manage Compliance
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