How To Maintain ISO 27001 Certification

Maintaining ISO 27001: All standards belonging to the ISO/IEC 27000 family offers help for organizations to keep their information asset more secure by minimizing risks. There are more than a dozen family members that belong to the ISO/IEC 27000 family.

How To Maintain ISO 27001 Certification

By taking help from the ISO/IEC 27000 standard, one can secure data assets like intellectual property, personal data of employees, financial data, or any form of information that belongs to the third party.

ISMS (Information Security Management System) is one of the systematic approaches designed for small, medium and large companies to help them secure their information that includes processes, people associated with the procedures and other IT systems that apply a risk management process.

Maintaining ISO 27001 Certification

It is a myth that getting ISO 27001 means getting your job done for a lifetime, which is not the case. Your real responsibility begins right after certification of ISO 27001 as you now need to maintain it from then onward. The ISO 27001 certificate is only valid for three years, followed by a surveillance audit and re-certification for which one must have to undergo the same audit process as was done initially at the time of ISO 27001 certification.

1. Operating the ISMS

Ensure to perform all activities compliant with ISO 27001, which means all procedures being followed are fulfilling the requirements of ISO 27001 clauses and Annex A.

2. Updating Documentation

Conditions and business needs might change with time. Some new products/services will be created using innovative ways, and some old products or technologies can be abolished or transformed into something new.

Your policies and procedures will be updated, and there always be new requirements that you need to fulfill as we are all living in a competitive market world.

Updating the documentation should be a mandatory part of your management system after periodic reviews leading to report submission to higher management to make the whole chain effective.

3. Risk Assessment Review

Threats and risks will also change their forms or may become more intensive. Risk management strategies should also be upgraded in the same way as chances that impact are major or minor.

4. Measure, Monitor and Review ISMS

How to know if you are on the right track or not? As far as monitoring is concerned, one must have to keep a close eye on developing and increasing threats and risks or even best practice to keep risks in your radar is recording incidents or security threats received from external sources. These real risks will assist you in making your system more secure and ultimately risk-free.

5. Perform Effective Internal Audits

Internal audits, if done correctly, can be of great help as it will highlight many loopholes existing in your current management system (although you will be ISO 27001 certified). Due to advancement as well as continuously evolving organization, a few gaps which might get overlooked by your team as they have multiple things to focus on, and priorities may change with time.

6. Perform Successful Management Reviews

To make sure all management reviews lead to fruitful outcomes will be the prime responsibility of the top leadership team. You need to ensure that Management is updated with most current information on ISMS performance, risks and controls, and in case of deviation, the administration has taken actions too.

7. Devise Efficient Corrective Actions

Corrective actions are essential to solving problems. Improvements should be part and parcel of your management system and so are corrective actions that must be efficient.

A surveillance audit will be conducted every year by the certification body, and they will surely check all the above points mentioned to gauge your ISO 27001 compliance level.

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