Most security standards have many requirements that need to be met just right for companies to receive their certificates of compliance—and this can be daunting. This is especially true for global compliance frameworks like the ISO 27001. While it is a beacon of best practices for managing and securing sensitive data, navigating the complexities of an ISO 27001 audit can be difficult. This is why you need a checklist.
To make preparing for an ISO 27001 certification easier, we at Akitra have curated this 27001 compliance audit checklist. It covers everything, including creating an information security management system (ISMS) structure, carrying out risk assessments, putting strong controls in place, and maintaining continuous compliance. Whether you are planning to improve your current procedures or getting ready for your first ISO 27001 audit, this checklist gives you the resources you need to attain and sustain ISO 27001 compliance successfully.
But first, do you even need an ISO 27001 audit checklist? Let’s find out.
Is an ISO 27001 Audit Checklist Required?
Yes, you must perform periodic surveillance audits in the interim and regular internal audits (usually once a year) by the ISO 27001 standard. In contrast to other frameworks like SOC 2, ISO 27001 certification audits are only done for some years. Once certified, your next certification audit will only occur at the third year’s conclusion.
So, what is the significance of an ISO 27001 compliance audit?
We will discuss that in the next section.
How Do ISO 27001 Audits Help?
Here are the top benefits of conducting an ISO 27001 audit:
- Maintain and Monitor Your ISMS: Audits assist you in keeping your ISMS up to date with the ISO 27001 standard’s requirements and implementation schedule.
- Gain an In-Depth Idea of Your ISMS: Businesses continue evolving with time. Audits support you in staying on your compliance path by assisting in determining whether such changes have an impact on your security posture.
- Train and Educate Your Employees: Audits and audit preparation help empower and educate your staff to comprehend and internalize an organization-wide security culture and adhere to procedures and requirements that comply with the ISO 27001 framework’s guidelines to maintain continuous security.
- Assess Potential Threats To Your ISMS: Company operations automatically breed new information assets. Through audits, you can be sure that your asset inventory is kept up to date, that all newly acquired information assets are evaluated for security risks, and that the appropriate risk treatment procedures are used to secure them.
Now that you know the significance of an ISO 27001 compliance audit, let’s delve into the 10-step audit checklist you should follow to ensure that you achieve your ISO 27001 certification seamlessly every time, thus fostering greater trust amongst your prospects and customers.
ISO 27001 Audit Checklist — Steps To Follow For Seamless Compliance Certification
The ISO 27001 audit checklist’s primary objective is to help companies adhere to the standard’s Information security requirements. The list enables companies to evaluate their ISMS for ongoing compliance and expedites the audit process.
Here is a simple ten-step approach to prepare for any internal or external ISO 27001 certification audit.
- Appoint an ISO 27001 Team and Assign Roles
Some businesses designate an internal implementation lead and assign staff members to handle internal audits and security documentation creation. Others would rather use contractors or outside consultants.
Making this important decision is the first step on your ISO 27001 checklist.
It should be based on the experience of your staff and your ability to pull teams away from current tasks to do extensive, in-depth security work. The team should consist of Heads of People Operations, Security Officers, and IT departments, among others, and serve as a spearhead for running point during the certification audit.
This group is expected to be involved in all ISMS’s design, construction, and oversight phases. Thus, these employees are in the best position to respond to the questions posed by the external auditor during the certification audit.
- Conduct a Gap Analysis
An ISO 27001 gap analysis will help you better understand what to look for if you decide to perform your own. A gap analysis compares your current ISMS and documentation to the ISO 27001 standard’s guidelines and requirements.
This could depend on the data, products, procedures, systems, functions, subsidiaries, and regions your company needs to safeguard using its ISMS. Ensure the scope includes all the data your company wishes to protect with an ISMS.
After completing this analysis, you should have a timeframe for approaching compliance and compliance gaps that specify your preparatory procedure. Without this customized roadmap, businesses may invest resources and time in initiatives unrelated to certification.
It is critical to remember here that your ISMS is dynamic. New departments and procedures may be implemented as your business grows. When this occurs, you should review your ISMS and make the necessary modifications.
- Create and Publish ISMS Policies, Documents, and Records
Businesses that are becoming certified for the first time must configure certain components of their ISMS and determine which aspects need to be protected. This is where documentation and internal sharing of those documents becomes important for the ISO 27001 procedure.
Your ISMS includes all of the internal ISO 27001 cybersecurity rules and processes. It requires examining how, when, and by whom information is accessible because it comprises people, processes, and technology. Creating and publishing ISMS policies, documents, and records contributes to greater accountability and lays the groundwork for developing, putting into practice, preserving, and enhancing the ISMS throughout time.
Verify that management has seen and approved each of the several ISO 27001 documents, including the Information Security Policy, Risk Treatment Plan, and Statement of Applicability, to mention a few. In addition, record all policies and make them accessible to all employees on the corporate intranet.
You can also include references to support your documentation, including information security objectives, leadership and commitment, roles, responsibilities, and authorities, approach to assessing and treating risk, control of documented information, communication, internal audit, management review, corrective action and continual improvement, and policy violations.
- Perform an Internal Risk Asssessment
This step involves recording the known risks to your data now that you completely understand it. You can identify and record these risks with the help of an ISO 27001 asset management checklist, an ISO 27001 network security checklist, an ISO 27001 firewall security audit checklist, or an ISO 27001 risk assessment checklist.
How probable are they to happen? How bad would things be if they happened? How are you going to choose? The first step in the procedure is to decide how you will categorize and rank these risks. A risk matrix is a useful tool for determining the most significant risks your company faces. Here is an illustration:
- Once you have identified the risks, you can rank them on a scale from 1 to 5, where one represents unlikely and five represents likely or high, medium or low, etc.
- Following this, you will calculate each risk’s possible impact. Another scale of 1 to 5, where 1 represents a negligible effect, and 5 represents a disastrous one, can be used.
- Last but not least, the overall risk of each hazard can then be determined, assisting you in ranking the most serious ones.
Once the risks are ranked, create a reaction plan for each risk and designate team members responsible for following up. An ISO 27001 data center audit checklist can assist you in recording security and quality control protocols for external data centers.
- Write a Statement of Applicability (SoA)
In this step, you need to study ISO 27001 regulations. There is a list of 114 potential controls in Annex A. Choose the ones that deal with the hazards that your risk assessment revealed.
Following that, compose a statement outlining the controls you want to use. This document is known as the Statement of Applicability (SoA) and is critical for the audit procedure.
- Implement ISMS Policies and Controls
Once the risks have been identified and risk management procedures have been established, you can start implementing the information security policy.
The core of ISO 27001 is the ISMS. The standard provides detailed guidance on safeguarding data against threats and vulnerabilities. Organizations typically use the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) technique to assist in implementing an ISMS plan.
Here is an example of how the PDCA method is applied in real life:
- Plan: Examine the cybersecurity management procedures and note any deviations from the ISO 27001 ISMS specifications.
- Do: Implement the new ISMS policies and controls.
- Check: Monitor the ISMS, examine it, and adjust as needed.
- Act: Uphold and gradually enhance ISMS.
You should also examine ISO 27001 clauses 4–10 and the controls in Annex A to ensure you’ve complied with all the requirements. Maintain the continuing monitoring of your ISMS rollout’s effectiveness.
- Train Your Employees in ISO 27001 Literature
Training is a common implementation snag, even though data security affects several job descriptions and the daily tasks performed by numerous personnel. Regular training is one method to show your team that you are committed to cybersecurity and foster a safety culture.
Workers should receive instruction on the ISMS, security threats, the rationale behind procedures, and the repercussions of disregarding compliance.
It is also a good idea to outline to employees what is expected of them to maintain the ISMS. Inform staff members of the potential consequences if the organization fails to adhere to data security regulations. This will assist your team become more aware of security issues and emphasize the value of your ISMS.
- Undergo an Internal Audit (Stages 1 and 2)
An internal audit tests your new processes and prepares you for the formal audit. Do your controls function properly? An unbiased external reviewer or an internal team that was not involved in establishing and documenting your ISMS may handle this.
Before the official audit, you are informed and allowed to make adjustments through an internal audit. Select a neutral and independent auditor to carry out the internal audit. Before arranging the Stage 1 audit, document and correct the internal audit findings when it has concluded.
- Have an Accredited ISO 27001 Lead Auditor Conduct the ISO 27001 Certification Audit (Stages 1 and 2)
You need an ISO 27001-accredited auditor to lead your ISO certification audit. They will initially examine your controls and documentation to perform a two-step audit. You can utilize an ISO 27001 stage 1 audit checklist to get control over this part of the audit in advance.
The auditor will then conduct a site audit. To make sure your controls are being implemented, they will test them. You guessed it: You may also cross this step by using an ISO 27001 stage 2 audit checklist. You will receive a list of major and minor non-conformities for each phase.
Once all the significant non-conformities have been addressed, the auditor will provide a draft certificate of ISO 27001 conformity to the organization for assessment. After that, the business makes any necessary corrections before returning it to the auditor. After the auditor publishes the certificate, your organization’s ISO 27001 certification can become formally recognized.
- Plan for Maintaining Certification and Ongoing Improvement
ISO 27001 compliance is an ongoing process. Thus, your company needs to commit to regular audits and assessments to ensure continuous compliance with ISO 27001 standards.
The duration of an ISO 27001 certificate is three years. Organizations must do an annual surveillance audit during that time frame by ISO 27001 to ensure a compliant ISMS has stayed active.
You can also take the following extra actions should be taken to guarantee compliance:
- Conduct management reviews every quarter or at least once a year,
- Prepare for the surveillance audits in the first and second years,
- Conduct yearly intermediate risk analyses and,
- Get ready for the audit of the third-year renewal.
Following ISO 27001 certification, your ISMS will undergo modifications. It can be necessary to update your ISMS if you work with new vendors or switch software providers.
Your ISMS should be updated regularly, with each update being documented by your ISO 27001 team. Documentation is also required for any risks to your ISMS that were found and eliminated. Not only will this streamline your subsequent certification procedure, but it will also draw attention to any non-conformities that can compromise the security of your data.
ISO 27001 Compliance with Akitra!
Establishing trust is a crucial competitive differentiator when courting new SaaS businesses in today’s era of data breaches and compromised privacy. Customers and partners want assurances that their organizations are doing everything possible to prevent disclosing sensitive data and putting them at risk, and compliance certification fills that need.
Akitra offers an industry-leading, AI-powered Compliance Automation platform for SaaS companies. Akitra, with its expertise in technology solutions and compliance, is well-positioned to assist companies in navigating the complexities of ISO frameworks compliance and can provide invaluable guidance in implementing the necessary frameworks and processes.
Using automated evidence collection and continuous monitoring, together with a full suite of customizable policies and controls as a compliance foundation, our compliance automation platform and services help our customers become compliance-ready for NIST’s 800-218 Secure Software Development Framework and other security standards, such as SOC 1, SOC 2, HIPAA, GDPR, PCI DSS, ISO 27001, ISO 27701, ISO 27017, ISO 27018, ISO 9001, ISO 13485, NIST CSF, NIST 800-53, NIST 800-171, FedRAMP, CCPA, CMMC, SOX ITGC, and more such as CIS AWS Foundations Benchmark, Australian ISM and Essential Eight etc. In addition, companies can use Akitra’s Risk Management product for overall risk management using quantitative methodologies such as Factorial Analysis of Information Risks (FAIR) and qualitative methods, including NIST-based for your company, Vulnerability Assessment and Pen Testing services, Trust Center, and AI-based Automated Questionnaire Response product to streamline and expedite security questionnaire response processes, delivering huge cost savings. Our compliance and security experts also provide customized guidance to navigate the end-to-end compliance process confidently. Last but not least, we have also developed a resource hub called Akitra Academy which provides easy-to-learn short video courses on security, compliance, and related topics of immense significance for today’s fast-growing companies.
The benefits of our solution include enormous savings in time, human resources, and cost savings, including discounted audit fees with our audit firm partners. Customers can achieve compliance certification fast and cost-effectively, stay continuously compliant as they grow, and become certified under additional frameworks from our single compliance automation platform.
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