ISO/IEC 27007 is a global standard that offers guidance for auditing Information Security Management Systems (ISMS). It belongs to the ISO 27000 series of standards, which focuses on best practices and advice for organizations on how they can manage their information security. The main goal of ISO 27007 is to help businesses conduct effective audits of their ISMS and ensure that it complies with tough ISO 27001 standards.
This standard covers how to plan, perform, and report on an ISMS audit. It includes choosing the right audit criteria, collecting and reviewing evidence, analyzing findings, and giving suggestions for improvements.
It’s useful not only for organizations managing or implementing an ISMS but also for third-party auditors assessing these systems.
To keep up with increasing customer demands, your business must be able to effectively manage large volumes of data. With high-profile data breaches on the rise, ensuring sensitive data is kept safe remains a major concern not only for businesses but for customers as well. The impact of these attacks is not to be understated, spanning from celebrities facing public embarrassment due to unauthorized photos being leaked to the theft of sensitive personal data, often leading to multimillion-dollar ransom demands that even big corporations struggle to handle.
When data includes personally identifiable, financial, or medical information, organizations – both large and small – have a moral and legal responsibility to protect it from cybercriminals. Safeguarding sensitive information is, thus, essential for enhancing your security posture.
This is where internationally recognized security standards, such as the ISO 27000 series of frameworks, play a vital role in helping organizations manage the security of assets like:
Auditing an organization’s ISMS can be a challenging task for the auditor involved. Similarly, from the company’s perspective, ensuring a smooth and successful audit requires adequate planning and careful attention to detail. This is where ISO 27007 comes in, as this standard was developed to provide clear guidance that supports the preparation process for both auditors and organizations.
ISO 19011 was designed to standardize the process of performing internal and external audits across various management systems. ISO/IEC 27007:2020 builds upon the guidelines of ISO 19011 by providing additional recommendations tailored to ISMS audits.
While ISO 19011 emphasizes a strong focus on collecting evidence to show proof of compliance, ISO 27007 goes a step further by outlining the specific types of evidence and assessments for ISO 27001 requirements and controls outlined in Annex A.
The framework defined in ISO 27007 offers a range of audit criteria that can be used individually or together to conduct a thorough ISO 27007 audit. This scope includes various aspects key to maintaining information security within an organization, such as:
This broad scope enables ISO 27007 to provide a thorough audit framework tailored to each organization’s needs and security challenges.
Additionally, it describes management system plan/(s) related to the outputs of an ISMS. For example, this may include a plan for addressing risks and opportunities when establishing an ISMS, a plan for managing and responding to risks, or a plan for achieving the organization’s overarching information security goals.
ISO 27007 is valuable for anyone involved in conducting or managing internal or external audits of an information security management system (ISMS), as well as those responsible for overseeing an ISMS audit program.
The standard applies to organizations of all sizes and addresses ISO audits of different scopes and scales. This includes audits performed by large audit teams – often associated with larger enterprises – as well as those conducted by individual auditors, regardless of their company size. Specifically, ISO 27007 addresses ISMS audits carried out internally by companies (first-party) as well as those performed by external service providers and other stakeholders (second-party).
It’s also important to note the ISO 27007 standard can be used for audits performed for purposes beyond third-party certification of management systems.
ISO 27007 works alongside other standards within the ISO/IEC 27000 family, which collectively provide guidance on implementing, maintaining, and auditing information security management systems. Additionally, it supports and complements standards such as ISO 9001 for quality management and ISO 14001 for environmental management when organizations need to align multiple management systems using a coordinated audit approach.
This means that ISO 27007 offers specialized guidance within the unique context of ISO 27001 audits, which makes it especially useful for organizations focused on managing their information security more effectively.
ISO 27008 provides recommendations for auditing information security management (ISM) systems that are specifically focused on security controls. In contrast, ISO 27007 takes a broader approach, concentrating on the overall management system (ISMS) rather than targeting specific controls.
