During the three-year lifespan of your ISO 27001 certification, your company undergoes annual external audits carried out by the accredited authority. At the same time, internal audits are performed by in-house security teams; however, its recommended to conduct internal audits every month.
After completing the time-consuming certification process, it’s essential to maintain it over the long run. To achieve it, a company can undergo a series of practices to ensure compliance:
Utilizing ISMS
Companies must prioritize and utilize their ISMS to implement all the essential ISO 27001 protocols and policies.
Updating Documentation
Another essential component where companies need to focus is updating documentation. Updation of the scope and other documents associated with ISO 27001 makes it easy for the company to stay in compliance for extended periods. Indeed, companies tend to evolve with time. Hence, their documents and policies must also be maintained, reflecting these changes. Continued maintenance is helpful during the time of renewal and ensures optimization.
Continuing Testing And Risk Review
With the continuous development of technologies and digital expertise, businesses constantly need to test and review their information systems’ risks. Companies must perform continuous testing to identify, mitigate, and reconcile risks. As new and new digital threats keep emerging, security leaders must regularly update risk management strategies.
Effective Internal Audits And Management Review
Companies should regularly audit their efforts and systems to check whether they meet the requirements. As a result, companies achieve productive results, leadership stays current, and ISMS actively drives changes.
Implementing Remediation Policies
Once the company recognizes the corrective actions required to achieve the ultimate solution, it’s essential to make the changed policy. These operations allow companies to improve their information security, defense procedures, and compliance certification processes.
ISO 27001 Maintenance
Maintaining ISO 27001 is challenging despite the ongoing management support and assistance. Finding the suitable certification authority and going through the entire certification process takes time, effort, and commitment.
Once a company earns ISO 27001 certification, it’s tempting to celebrate the achievement and forget about it. But to maintain ISO 27001 certification, companies must continuously undergo a three-year audit cycle.
The selected ISO 27001 certification authority keeps a close eye on your ISMS. It conducts external evaluation and regular maintenance during the three-year lifespan of the certification.
Also, the internal management needs to focus on conducting an in-house audit as it’s a part of the bigger picture. Internal audits help with initial certification audits. When companies don’t skip their annual review for those three years, you will be ready for a smooth renewal of the ISO 27001 certification.
The following tips can help maintain ISO 27001 certification:
- Continuously maintain and evolve the information security management system
- Pass each maintenance audit with flying colors
- Be ready for a recertification audit
- Make ISMS a part of your day-to-day business operations
- Carry our periodic reviews across the organization
- Be updated regarding the fast-moving world of technology and data security
- Develop strategic policies to manage the ISMS
- Never let ISIMS compliance drop off the radar
- Correct any ISMS issues ASAP
- Keep an eye on ISMS evolution opportunities
Streamline Compliance to ISO 27001
The ISO 27001 standard is a great way to demonstrate that your company meets a globally recognized level of information security aspects. Gaining an ISO 27001 certification can be a long process and requires continual improvement. You can streamline the process with the CyberStrong platform.
CyberSaint’s all-in-one solution streamlines and automates compliance to gold-standard frameworks like ISO 27001 and CMMC while providing automated risk assessments and risk management processes. For more information on automated cyber and IT risk and compliance management, contact us.
