How can you give partner organisations and customers greater confidence in the way they interact with your business, and assure the reliability, security, and integrity of your systems and information? The answer: ISO 27001 certification.
ISO 27001 certification is an important standard for most organisations with an ISMS (Information Security Management System), but what is ISO 27001, and do you need it?
This article will discuss why your organisation should be ISO 27001 certified and answer all your questions.
What is ISO 27001?
ISO 27001 is the internationally recognised specification for implementing an ISMS (Information Security Management System). It delivers a framework to establish, operate, monitor, review and maintain an ISMS.
ISO 27001 is the most comprehensive and respected standard of its kind, published by the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO), in partnership with the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). It is one part of a wider series of standards (the ISO/IEC 27000 series) that covers information security.
What are the requirements of ISO 27001 training?
You could jump straight into ISO 27001 training without any primer, but you’ll get much more from it if you familiarise yourself with the standard first.
As such, we recommend your team take our ISO 27001 course, where they will learn the principles of ISO 27001, why it’s important, how everyone can improve information security in your organisation, and how to react to noncompliance in your organisation.
Deploying cybersecurity awareness training to your team is the next step. Demonstrating that your team have completed cybersecurity awareness training is a required element to achieve the standard. Whether it’s Bob’s Culture or Bob’s Compliance, our products help you do just that.
You may be wondering where cybersecurity comes into all this, and the answer is simple – ISO 27001 is an information security framework and cybersecurity forms part of this. As the world becomes more dependent on technology, cyber will take an increasing role in how we establish, operate, monitor, review and maintain our ISMS.
In terms of specific requirements for ISO 27001 training, this depends on the type of course you take, and the needs of your organisation.
What are the benefits of ISO 27001 certification?
There are several benefits to ISO 27001 certification:
- Increased partner and customer confidence in your organisation
- Retain customers and win new business
- Prevent loss of reputation over compliance concerns
- Avoid hefty fines over non-compliance
- Avoid wasted investment in the wrong security standards
- Comply with other regulations, such as SOX
- Plug gaps and loopholes in your information security
- Improve risk management
- Demonstrate a clear commitment to information security
- Build a culture of security within your organisation
- Establish, operate, monitor, review and maintain an ISMS to the highest standards
ue to this wide range of benefits, you should look beyond ISO 27001 as a compliance tool and more as a way to achieve several business benefits. It can deliver value in several ways, making it a worthwhile investment for many organisations.
What types of organisations benefit from ISO 27001 certification?
While many organisations have some form of information security standards in place, ISO 27001 is a comprehensive framework for information security, delivering compliance, and assurance, across all areas of an ISMS.
Because of this, ISO 27001 certification can benefit any organisations that are directly or indirectly involved in information security — and especially those that handle sensitive data.
Examples include:
- Government agencies – including national and local government departments
- IT companies – including software developers, cloud computing companies, IT support companies
- Financial companies – including banks, lenders, brokerage houses, insurers, wealth management firms
- Telecoms companies – including internet service providers, mobile networks, satellite companies
- Technology companies – including software companies, hardware companies, biotech companies, renewable energy companies
Another important thing to remember is public and private organisations can define compliance with ISO 27001 as a legal requirement in their contracts.
This means you may need ISO 27001 certification to be a partner, customer or supplier to some organisations, a point that is most relevant to highly-regulated industries like finance, where ISO 27001 is considered an industry standard.
What next?
If you’ve made it this far, then there’s a good chance you believe your organisation would benefit from ISO 27001 certification.
The next step is to discuss this with ISO certification experts, who will help you figure it out once and for all if it’s right for your organisation.
In any case, it’s important to implement effective information security education and awareness across your organisation, and our cybersecurity awareness training is the perfect way to get started.