TL;DR: Is ISO27001 easy or am I just too dumb to see the complexity?
Hi!
Just wanted to start some conversation on a standard that’s sorta kinda infamous where I’m currently at, the ISO27001 standard.
I got tasked with “polishing up an ISMS” for a company and while I can’t go into details, I got basically a control name (from 27002:2022) and a description of “what we need it to do.” Now that I got into it, I feel that I may be missing something. Most of their controls are “Limit access to server room” or “Make sure access is logged and not permanent.”
Like, the standard is not difficult reading, but if they can explain to ME how the controls should look in the end, what am I missing? Is there some extremely difficult part? Or can I just say “Just make the creds timeout after a month. Source: dude trust me?”
If you were tasked with implementing ISO27001, did you encounter any specific hurdles that I may not see from where I’m standing? The only thing I can see after I got through all the controls was a feeling that this will be more expensive on time for the security teams.
Thank you for coming to my TED(x) talk.
The controls themselves are not hard to understand. Writing policies describing these controls is also not that hard. But: changing the way an organization is working, in terms of habits, documentation, information management, how we collaborate - that can be really, really hard. So even if the requirements in ISO 27001 and the controls guidance in ISO 27002 look straight forward from a technical point of view, it is not easy to change the way of working for a whole organization! It requires leadership, it requires resources, and enough competent people with internal social capital to help support and drive the change. This is why an ISO 27001 journey is usually not just smooth sailing.