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Achieve Robust Information Security with ISO 27001:2022

Our platform empowers your organisation to align with ISO 27001, ensuring comprehensive security management. This international standard is essential for protecting sensitive data and enhancing resilience against cyber threats. With over 70,000 certificates issued globally, ISO 27001’s widespread adoption underscores its importance in safeguarding information assets.

Why ISO 27001 Matters

Achieving ISO 27001:2022 certification emphasises a comprehensive, risk-based approach to improving information security management, ensuring your organisation effectively manages and mitigates potential threats, aligning with modern security needs. It provides a systematic methodology for managing sensitive information, ensuring it remains secure. Certification can reduce data breach costs by 30% and is recognised in over 150 countries, enhancing international business opportunities and competitive advantage.

How ISO 27001 Certification Benefits Your Business

  1. Achieve Cost Efficiency: Save time and money by preventing costly security breaches. Implement proactive risk management measures to significantly reduce the likelihood of incidents.
  2. Accelerate Sales Growth: Streamline your sales process by reducing extensive security documentation requests (RFIs). Showcase your compliance with international information security standards to shorten negotiation times and close deals faster.
  3. Boost Client Trust: Demonstrate your commitment to information security to enhance client confidence and build lasting trust. Increase customer loyalty and retain clients in sectors like finance, healthcare, and IT services.

 

Comprehensive Guide on How to Implement ISO 27001:2022 Certification

The standard’s structure includes a comprehensive Information Security Management System (ISMS) framework and a detailed ISO 27001 implementation guide that integrates risk management processes and Annex A controls. These components create a holistic security strategy, addressing various aspects of security (ISO 27001:2022 Clause 4.2). This approach not only enhances security but also fosters a culture of awareness and compliance within the organisation.

Streamlining Certification with ISMS.online

ISMS.online plays a crucial role in facilitating alignment by offering tools that streamline the certification process. Our platform provides automated risk assessments and real-time monitoring, simplifying the implementation of ISO 27001:2022 requirements. This not only reduces manual effort but also enhances efficiency and accuracy in maintaining alignment.

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Understanding ISO 27001:2022

ISO 27001 is a pivotal standard for improving an Information Security Management System (ISMS), offering a structured framework to protect sensitive data. This framework integrates comprehensive risk evaluation processes and Annex A controls, forming a robust security strategy. Organisations can effectively identify, analyse, and address vulnerabilities, enhancing their overall security posture.

Key Elements of ISO 27001:2022

  • ISMS Framework: This foundational component establishes systematic policies and procedures for managing information security (ISO 27001:2022 Clause 4.2). It aligns organisational goals with security protocols, fostering a culture of compliance and awareness.
  • Risk Evaluation: Central to ISO 27001, this process involves conducting thorough assessments to identify potential threats. It is essential for implementing appropriate security measures and ensuring continuous monitoring and improvement.
  • ISO 27001 Controls: ISO 27001:2022 outlines a comprehensive set of ISO 27001 controls within Annex A, designed to address various aspects of information security. These controls include measures for access control, cryptography, physical security, and incident management, among others. Implementing these controls ensures your Information Security Management System (ISMS) effectively mitigates risks and safeguards sensitive information.

iso 27001 requirements and structure

Aligning with International Standards

ISO 27001:2022 is developed in collaboration with the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), ensuring that the standard aligns with global best practices in information security. This partnership enhances the credibility and applicability of ISO 27001 across diverse industries and regions.

How ISO 27001 Integrates with Other Standards

ISO 27001:2022 seamlessly integrates with other standards like ISO 9001 for quality management, ISO 27002 for code of practice for information security controls and regulations like GDPR, enhancing compliance and operational efficiency. This integration allows organisations to streamline regulatory efforts and align security practices with broader business objectives. Initial preparation involves a gap analysis to identify areas needing improvement, followed by a risk evaluation to assess potential threats. Implementing Annex A controls ensures comprehensive security measures are in place. The final audit process, including Stage 1 and Stage 2 audits, verifies compliance and readiness for certification.

Why Is ISO 27001:2022 Important for Organisations?

ISO 27001 plays a vital role in strengthening your organisation’s data protection strategies. It provides a comprehensive framework for managing sensitive information, aligning with contemporary cybersecurity requirements through a risk-based approach. This alignment not only fortifies defences but also ensures adherence to regulations like GDPR, mitigating potential legal risks (ISO 27001:2022 Clause 6.1).

ISO 27001:2022 Integration with Other Standards

ISO 27001 is part of the broader ISO family of management system standards. This allows it to be seamlessly integrated with other standards, such as:

This integrated approach helps your organisation maintain robust operational standards, streamlining the certification process and enhancing compliance.

How Does ISO 27001:2022 Enhance Risk Management?

  • Structured Risk Management: The standard emphasises the systematic identification, assessment, and mitigation of risks, fostering a proactive security posture.
  • Incident Reduction: Organisations experience fewer breaches due to the robust controls outlined in Annex A.
  • Operational Efficiency: Streamlined processes enhance efficiency, reducing the likelihood of costly incidents.

Structured Risk Management with ISO 27001:2022

ISO 27001 requires organisations to adopt a comprehensive, systematic approach to risk management. This includes:

  • Risk Identification and Assessment: Identify potential threats to sensitive data and evaluate the severity and likelihood of those risks (ISO 27001:2022 Clause 6.1).
  • Risk Treatment: Select appropriate treatment options, such as mitigating, transferring, avoiding, or accepting risks. With the addition of new options like exploiting and enhancing, organisations can take calculated risks to harness opportunities.

Each of these steps must be reviewed regularly to ensure that the risk landscape is continuously monitored and mitigated as necessary.

 

What Are the Benefits for Trust and Reputation?

Certification signifies a commitment to data protection, enhancing your business reputation and customer trust. Certified organisations often see a 20% increase in customer satisfaction, as clients appreciate the assurance of secure data handling.

How ISO 27001 Certification Impacts Client Trust and Sales

  1. Increased Client Confidence: When prospective clients see that your organisation is ISO 27001 certified, it automatically elevates their trust in your ability to protect sensitive information. This trust is essential for sectors where data security is a deciding factor, such as healthcare, finance, and government contracting.
  2. Faster Sales Cycles: ISO 27001 certification reduces the time spent answering security questionnaires during the procurement process. Prospective clients will see your certification as a guarantee of high security standards, speeding up decision-making.
  3. Competitive Advantage: ISO 27001 certification positions your company as a leader in information security, giving you an edge over competitors who may not hold this certification.

How Does ISO 27001:2022 Offer Competitive Advantages?

ISO 27001 opens international business opportunities, recognised in over 150 countries. It cultivates a culture of security awareness, positively influencing organisational culture and encouraging continuous improvement and resilience, essential for thriving in today’s digital environment.

How Can ISO 27001 Support Regulatory Adherence?

Aligning with ISO 27001 helps navigate complex regulatory landscapes, ensuring adherence to various legal requirements. This alignment reduces potential legal liabilities and enhances overall governance.

Incorporating ISO 27001:2022 into your organisation not only strengthens your data protection framework but also builds a foundation for sustainable growth and trust in the global market.


Enhancing Risk Management with ISO 27001:2022

ISO 27001:2022 offers a robust framework for managing information security risks, vital for safeguarding your organisation’s sensitive data. This standard emphasises a systematic approach to risk evaluation, ensuring potential threats are identified, assessed, and mitigated effectively.

How Does ISO 27001 Structure Risk Management?

ISO 27001:2022 integrates risk evaluation into the Information Security Management System (ISMS), involving:

  • Risk Assessment: Conducting thorough evaluations to identify and analyse potential threats and vulnerabilities (ISO 27001:2022 Clause 6.1).
  • Risk Treatment: Implementing strategies to mitigate identified risks, using controls outlined in Annex A to reduce vulnerabilities and threats.
  • Continuous Monitoring: Regularly reviewing and updating practices to adapt to evolving threats and maintain security effectiveness.

What Techniques and Strategies Are Key?

Effective risk management under ISO 27001:2022 involves:

  • Risk Assessment and Analysis: Utilising methodologies like SWOT analysis and threat modelling to evaluate risks comprehensively.
  • Risk Treatment and Mitigation: Applying controls from Annex A to address specific risks, ensuring a proactive approach to security.
  • Continuous Improvement: Fostering a security-focused culture that encourages ongoing evaluation and enhancement of risk management practices.

 

How Can the Framework Be Tailored to Your Organisation?

ISO 27001:2022’s framework can be customised to fit your organisation’s specific needs, ensuring that security measures align with business objectives and regulatory requirements. By fostering a culture of proactive risk management, organisations with ISO 27001 certification experience fewer security breaches and enhanced resilience against cyber threats. This approach not only protects your data but also builds trust with stakeholders, enhancing your organisation’s reputation and competitive edge.

Key Changes in ISO 27001:2022

ISO 27001:2022 introduces pivotal updates, enhancing its role in modern cybersecurity. The most significant changes reside in Annex A, which now includes advanced measures for digital security and proactive threat management. These revisions address the evolving nature of security challenges, particularly the increasing reliance on digital platforms.

Key Differences Between ISO 27001:2022 and Earlier Versions

The differences between the 2013 and 2022 versions of ISO 27001 are crucial to understanding the updated standard. While there are no massive overhauls, the refinements in Annex A controls and other areas ensure the standard remains relevant to modern cybersecurity challenges. Key changes include:

  • Restructuring of Annex A Controls: Annex A controls have been condensed from 114 to 93, with some being merged, revised, or newly added. These changes reflect the current cybersecurity environment, making controls more streamlined and focused.
  • New Focus Areas: The 11 new controls introduced in ISO 27001:2022 include areas such as threat intelligence, physical security monitoring, secure coding, and cloud service security, addressing the rise of digital threats and the increased reliance on cloud-based solutions.

Understanding Annex A Controls

  • Enhanced Security Protocols: Annex A now features 93 controls, with new additions focusing on digital security and proactive threat management. These controls are designed to mitigate emerging risks and ensure robust protection of information assets.
  • Digital Security Focus: As digital platforms become integral to operations, ISO 27001:2022 emphasises securing digital environments, ensuring data integrity, and safeguarding against unauthorised access.
  • Proactive Threat Management: New controls enable organisations to anticipate and respond to potential security incidents more effectively, strengthening their overall security posture.

Detailed Breakdown of Annex A Controls in ISO 27001:2022

ISO 27001:2022 introduces a revised set of Annex A controls, reducing the total from 114 to 93 and restructuring them into four main groups. Here’s a breakdown of the control categories:

Control Group Number of Controls Examples
Organisational 37 Threat intelligence, ICT readiness, information security policies
People 8 Responsibilities for security, screening
Physical 14 Physical security monitoring, equipment protection
Technological 34 Web filtering, secure coding, data leakage prevention

New Controls
ISO 27001:2022 introduces 11 new controls focused on emerging technologies and challenges, including:

  • Cloud services: Security measures for cloud infrastructure.
  • Threat intelligence: Proactive identification of security threats.
  • ICT readiness: Business continuity preparations for ICT systems.

By implementing these controls, organisations ensure they are equipped to handle modern information security challenges.

iso 27002 new controls

Full Table of ISO 27001 Controls

Below is a full list of ISO 27001:2022 controls

ISO 27001:2022 Organisational Controls
Annex A Control Type ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A Identifier ISO/IEC 27001:2013 Annex A Identifier Annex A Name
Organisational Controls Annex A 5.1 Annex A 5.1.1
Annex A 5.1.2
Policies for Information Security
Organisational Controls Annex A 5.2 Annex A 6.1.1 Information Security Roles and Responsibilities
Organisational Controls Annex A 5.3 Annex A 6.1.2 Segregation of Duties
Organisational Controls Annex A 5.4 Annex A 7.2.1 Management Responsibilities
Organisational Controls Annex A 5.5 Annex A 6.1.3 Contact With Authorities
Organisational Controls Annex A 5.6 Annex A 6.1.4 Contact With Special Interest Groups
Organisational Controls Annex A 5.7 NEW Threat Intelligence
Organisational Controls Annex A 5.8 Annex A 6.1.5
Annex A 14.1.1
Information Security in Project Management
Organisational Controls Annex A 5.9 Annex A 8.1.1
Annex A 8.1.2
Inventory of Information and Other Associated Assets
Organisational Controls Annex A 5.10 Annex A 8.1.3
Annex A 8.2.3
Acceptable Use of Information and Other Associated Assets
Organisational Controls Annex A 5.11 Annex A 8.1.4 Return of Assets
Organisational Controls Annex A 5.12 Annex A 8.2.1 Classification of Information
Organisational Controls Annex A 5.13 Annex A 8.2.2 Labelling of Information
Organisational Controls Annex A 5.14 Annex A 13.2.1
Annex A 13.2.2
Annex A 13.2.3
Information Transfer
Organisational Controls Annex A 5.15 Annex A 9.1.1
Annex A 9.1.2
Access Control
Organisational Controls Annex A 5.16 Annex A 9.2.1 Identity Management
Organisational Controls Annex A 5.17 Annex A 9.2.4
Annex A 9.3.1
Annex A 9.4.3
Authentication Information
Organisational Controls Annex A 5.18 Annex A 9.2.2
Annex A 9.2.5
Annex A 9.2.6
Access Rights
Organisational Controls Annex A 5.19 Annex A 15.1.1 Information Security in Supplier Relationships
Organisational Controls Annex A 5.20 Annex A 15.1.2 Addressing Information Security Within Supplier Agreements
Organisational Controls Annex A 5.21 Annex A 15.1.3 Managing Information Security in the ICT Supply Chain
Organisational Controls Annex A 5.22 Annex A 15.2.1
Annex A 15.2.2
Monitoring, Review and Change Management of Supplier Services
Organisational Controls Annex A 5.23 NEW Information Security for Use of Cloud Services
Organisational Controls Annex A 5.24 Annex A 16.1.1 Information Security Incident Management Planning and Preparation
Organisational Controls Annex A 5.25 Annex A 16.1.4 Assessment and Decision on Information Security Events
Organisational Controls Annex A 5.26 Annex A 16.1.5 Response to Information Security Incidents
Organisational Controls Annex A 5.27 Annex A 16.1.6 Learning From Information Security Incidents
Organisational Controls Annex A 5.28 Annex A 16.1.7 Collection of Evidence
Organisational Controls Annex A 5.29 Annex A 17.1.1
Annex A 17.1.2
Annex A 17.1.3
Information Security During Disruption
Organisational Controls Annex A 5.30 NEW ICT Readiness for Business Continuity
Organisational Controls Annex A 5.31 Annex A 18.1.1
Annex A 18.1.5
Legal, Statutory, Regulatory and Contractual Requirements
Organisational Controls Annex A 5.32 Annex A 18.1.2 Intellectual Property Rights
Organisational Controls Annex A 5.33 Annex A 18.1.3 Protection of Records
Organisational Controls Annex A 5.34 Annex A 18.1.4 Privacy and Protection of PII
Organisational Controls Annex A 5.35 Annex A 18.2.1 Independent Review of Information Security
Organisational Controls Annex A 5.36 Annex A 18.2.2
Annex A 18.2.3
Compliance With Policies, Rules and Standards for Information Security
Organisational Controls Annex A 5.37 Annex A 12.1.1 Documented Operating Procedures
ISO 27001:2022 People Controls
Annex A Control Type ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A Identifier ISO/IEC 27001:2013 Annex A Identifier Annex A Name
People Controls Annex A 6.1 Annex A 7.1.1 Screening
People Controls Annex A 6.2 Annex A 7.1.2 Terms and Conditions of Employment
People Controls Annex A 6.3 Annex A 7.2.2 Information Security Awareness, Education and Training
People Controls Annex A 6.4 Annex A 7.2.3 Disciplinary Process
People Controls Annex A 6.5 Annex A 7.3.1 Responsibilities After Termination or Change of Employment
People Controls Annex A 6.6 Annex A 13.2.4 Confidentiality or Non-Disclosure Agreements
People Controls Annex A 6.7 Annex A 6.2.2 Remote Working
People Controls Annex A 6.8 Annex A 16.1.2
Annex A 16.1.3
Information Security Event Reporting
ISO 27001:2022 Physical Controls
Annex A Control Type ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A Identifier ISO/IEC 27001:2013 Annex A Identifier Annex A Name
Physical Controls Annex A 7.1 Annex A 11.1.1 Physical Security Perimeters
Physical Controls Annex A 7.2 Annex A 11.1.2
Annex A 11.1.6
Physical Entry
Physical Controls Annex A 7.3 Annex A 11.1.3 Securing Offices, Rooms and Facilities
Physical Controls Annex A 7.4 NEW Physical Security Monitoring
Physical Controls Annex A 7.5 Annex A 11.1.4 Protecting Against Physical and Environmental Threats
Physical Controls Annex A 7.6 Annex A 11.1.5 Working In Secure Areas
Physical Controls Annex A 7.7 Annex A 11.2.9 Clear Desk and Clear Screen
Physical Controls Annex A 7.8 Annex A 11.2.1 Equipment Siting and Protection
Physical Controls Annex A 7.9 Annex A 11.2.6 Security of Assets Off-Premises
Physical Controls Annex A 7.10 Annex A 8.3.1
Annex A 8.3.2
Annex A 8.3.3
Annex A 11.2.5
Storage Media
Physical Controls Annex A 7.11 Annex A 11.2.2 Supporting Utilities
Physical Controls Annex A 7.12 Annex A 11.2.3 Cabling Security
Physical Controls Annex A 7.13 Annex A 11.2.4 Equipment Maintenance
Physical Controls Annex A 7.14 Annex A 11.2.7 Secure Disposal or Re-Use of Equipment
ISO 27001:2022 Technological Controls
Annex A Control Type ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A Identifier ISO/IEC 27001:2013 Annex A Identifier Annex A Name
Technological Controls Annex A 8.1 Annex A 6.2.1
Annex A 11.2.8
User Endpoint Devices
Technological Controls Annex A 8.2 Annex A 9.2.3 Privileged Access Rights
Technological Controls Annex A 8.3 Annex A 9.4.1 Information Access Restriction
Technological Controls Annex A 8.4 Annex A 9.4.5 Access to Source Code
Technological Controls Annex A 8.5 Annex A 9.4.2 Secure Authentication
Technological Controls Annex A 8.6 Annex A 12.1.3 Capacity Management
Technological Controls Annex A 8.7 Annex A 12.2.1 Protection Against Malware
Technological Controls Annex A 8.8 Annex A 12.6.1
Annex A 18.2.3
Management of Technical Vulnerabilities
Technological Controls Annex A 8.9 NEW Configuration Management
Technological Controls Annex A 8.10 NEW Information Deletion
Technological Controls Annex A 8.11 NEW Data Masking
Technological Controls Annex A 8.12 NEW Data Leakage Prevention
Technological Controls Annex A 8.13 Annex A 12.3.1 Information Backup
Technological Controls Annex A 8.14 Annex A 17.2.1 Redundancy of Information Processing Facilities
Technological Controls Annex A 8.15 Annex A 12.4.1
Annex A 12.4.2
Annex A 12.4.3
Logging
Technological Controls Annex A 8.16 NEW Monitoring Activities
Technological Controls Annex A 8.17 Annex A 12.4.4 Clock Synchronization
Technological Controls Annex A 8.18 Annex A 9.4.4 Use of Privileged Utility ProgramsAccess Rights
Technological Controls Annex A 8.19 Annex A 12.5.1
Annex A 12.6.2
Installation of Software on Operational Systems
Technological Controls Annex A 8.20 Annex A 13.1.1 Networks Security
Technological Controls Annex A 8.21 Annex A 13.1.2 Security of Network Services
Technological Controls Annex A 8.22 Annex A 13.1.3 Segregation of Networks
Technological Controls Annex A 8.23 NEW Web filtering
Technological Controls Annex A 8.24 Annex A 10.1.1
Annex A 10.1.2
Use of Cryptography
Technological Controls Annex A 8.25 Annex A 14.2.1 Secure Development Life Cycle
Technological Controls Annex A 8.26 Annex A 14.1.2
Annex A 14.1.3
Application Security Requirements
Technological Controls Annex A 8.27 Annex A 14.2.5 Secure System Architecture and Engineering PrinciplesLearning From Information Security Incidents
Technological Controls Annex A 8.28 NEW Secure Coding
Technological Controls Annex A 8.29 Annex A 14.2.8
Annex A 14.2.9
Security Testing in Development and Acceptance
Technological Controls Annex A 8.30 Annex A 14.2.7 Outsourced Development
Technological Controls Annex A 8.31 Annex A 12.1.4
Annex A 14.2.6
Separation of Development, Test and Production Environments
Technological Controls Annex A 8.32 Annex A 12.1.2
Annex A 14.2.2
Annex A 14.2.3
Annex A 14.2.4
Change Management
Technological Controls Annex A 8.33 Annex A 14.3.1 Test Information
Technological Controls Annex A 8.34 Annex A 12.7.1 Protection of Information Systems During Audit Testing

Navigating Implementation Challenges

Organisations may face challenges such as resource constraints and insufficient management support when implementing these updates. Effective resource allocation and stakeholder engagement are crucial for maintaining momentum and achieving successful compliance. Regular training sessions can help clarify the standard’s requirements, reducing compliance challenges.

Adapting to Evolving Security Threats

These updates demonstrate ISO 27001:2022’s adaptability to the changing security environment, ensuring organisations remain resilient against new threats. By aligning with these enhanced requirements, your organisation can bolster its security framework, improve compliance processes, and maintain a competitive edge in the global market.


How Can Organisations Successfully Attain ISO 27001 Certification?

Achieving ISO 27001:2022 requires a methodical approach, ensuring your organisation aligns with the standard’s comprehensive requirements. Here’s a detailed guide to navigate this process effectively:

Kickstart Your Certification with a Thorough Gap Analysis

Identify improvement areas with a comprehensive gap analysis. Assess current practices against ISO 27001 standard to pinpoint discrepancies. Develop a detailed project plan outlining objectives, timelines, and responsibilities. Engage stakeholders early to secure buy-in and allocate resources efficiently.

Implement an Effective ISMS

Establish and implement an Information Security Management System (ISMS) tailored to your organisational goals. Implement the 93 Annex A controls, emphasising risk assessment and treatment (ISO 27001:2022 Clause 6.1). Our platform, ISMS.online, automates compliance tasks, reducing manual effort and enhancing precision.

Perform Regular Internal Audits

Conduct regular internal audits to evaluate the effectiveness of your ISMS. Management reviews are essential for performance evaluation and necessary adjustments (ISO 27001:2022 Clause 9.3). ISMS.online facilitates real-time collaboration, boosting team efficiency and audit readiness.

Engage with Certification Bodies

Select an accredited certification body and schedule the audit process, including Stage 1 and Stage 2 audits. Ensure all documentation is complete and accessible. ISMS.online offers templates and resources to simplify documentation and track progress.

Overcome Common Challenges with a Free Consultation

Overcome resource constraints and resistance to change by fostering a culture of security awareness and continuous improvement. Our platform supports maintaining alignment over time, aiding your organisation in achieving and sustaining certification.

Schedule a free consultation to address resource constraints and navigate resistance to change. Learn how ISMS.online can support your implementation efforts and ensure successful certification.

ISO 27001:2022 and Supplier Relationships Requirements

ISO 27001:2022 has introduced new requirements to ensure organisations maintain robust supplier and third-party management programs. This includes:

  • Identifying and Assessing Suppliers: Organisations must identify and analyse third-party suppliers that impact information security. A thorough risk assessment for each supplier is mandatory to ensure compliance with your ISMS.
  • Supplier Security Controls: Ensure that your suppliers implement adequate security controls and that these are regularly reviewed. This extends to ensuring that customer service levels and personal data protection are not adversely affected.
  • Auditing Suppliers: Organisations should audit their suppliers’ processes and systems regularly. This aligns with the new ISO 27001:2022 requirements, ensuring that supplier compliance is maintained and that risks from third-party partnerships are mitigated.

 

Enhanced Employee Cybersecurity Awareness

ISO 27001:2022 continues to emphasise the importance of employee awareness. Implementing policies for ongoing education and training is critical. This approach ensures that your employees are not only aware of security risks but are also capable of actively participating in mitigating those risks.

  • Human Error Prevention: Businesses should invest in training programs that aim to prevent human error, one of the leading causes of security breaches.
  • Clear Policy Development: Establish clear guidelines for employee conduct regarding data security. This includes awareness programs on phishing, password management, and mobile device security.
  • Security Culture: Foster a security-aware culture where employees feel empowered to raise concerns about cybersecurity threats. An environment of openness helps organisations tackle risks before they materialise into incidents.

ISO 27001:2022 Requirements for Human Resource Security

One of the essential refinements in ISO 27001:2022 is its expanded focus on human resource security. This involves:

  • Personnel Screening: Clear guidelines for personnel screening before hiring are crucial to ensuring that employees with access to sensitive information meet required security standards.
  • Training and Awareness: Ongoing education is required to ensure that staff are fully aware of the organisation’s security policies and procedures.
  • Disciplinary Actions: Define clear consequences for policy violations, ensuring that all employees understand the importance of complying with security requirements.

These controls ensure that organisations manage both internal and external personnel security risks effectively.


Employee Awareness Programs and Security Culture

Fostering a culture of security awareness is crucial for maintaining strong defences against evolving cyber threats. ISO 27001:2022 promotes ongoing training and awareness programs to ensure that all employees, from leadership to staff, are involved in upholding information security standards.

  • Phishing Simulations and Security Drills: Conducting regular security drills and phishing simulations helps ensure employees are prepared to handle cyber incidents.
  • Interactive Workshops: Engage employees in practical training sessions that reinforce key security protocols, improving overall organisational awareness.

Continual Improvement and Cybersecurity Culture

Finally, ISO 27001:2022 advocates for a culture of continual improvement, where organisations consistently evaluate and update their security policies. This proactive stance is integral to maintaining compliance and ensuring the organisation stays ahead of emerging threats.

  • Security Governance: Regular updates to security policies and audits of cybersecurity practices ensure ongoing compliance with ISO 27001:2022.
  • Proactive Risk Management: Encouraging a culture that prioritises risk assessment and mitigation allows organisations to stay responsive to new cyber threats.

Optimal Timing for ISO 27001 Adoption

Adopting ISO 27001:2022 is a strategic decision that depends on your organisation’s readiness and objectives. The ideal timing often aligns with periods of growth or digital transformation, where enhancing security frameworks can significantly improve business outcomes. Early adoption provides a competitive edge, as certification is recognised in over 150 countries, expanding international business opportunities.

Conducting a Readiness Assessment

To ensure a seamless adoption, conduct a thorough readiness assessment to evaluate current security practices against the updated standard. This involves:

  • Gap Analysis: Identify areas needing improvement and align them with ISO 27001:2022 requirements.
  • Resource Allocation: Ensure adequate resources, including personnel, technology, and budget, are available to support the adoption.
  • Stakeholder Engagement: Secure buy-in from key stakeholders to facilitate a smooth adoption process.

Aligning Certification with Strategic Goals

Aligning certification with strategic goals enhances business outcomes. Consider:

  • Timeline and Deadlines: Be aware of industry-specific deadlines for compliance to avoid penalties.
  • Continuous Improvement: Foster a culture of ongoing evaluation and enhancement of security practices.

 

Utilising ISMS.online for Effective Management

Our platform, ISMS.online, plays a vital role in managing the adoption effectively. It offers tools for automating compliance tasks, reducing manual effort, and providing real-time collaboration features. This ensures your organisation can maintain compliance and track progress efficiently throughout the adoption process.

By strategically planning and utilising the right tools, your organisation can navigate the adoption of ISO 27001:2022 smoothly, ensuring robust security and compliance.

Where Does ISO 27001:2022 Align with Other Regulatory Standards?

ISO 27001 plays a significant role in aligning with key regulatory frameworks, such as GDPR and NIS 2, to enhance data protection and streamline regulatory adherence. This alignment not only strengthens data privacy but also improves organisational resilience across multiple frameworks.

How Does ISO 27001:2022 Enhance GDPR Compliance?

ISO 27001:2022 complements GDPR by focusing on data protection and privacy through its comprehensive risk management processes (ISO 27001:2022 Clause 6.1). The standard’s emphasis on safeguarding personal data aligns with GDPR’s stringent requirements, ensuring robust data protection strategies.

What Role Does ISO 27001:2022 Play in Supporting NIS 2 Directives?

The standard supports NIS 2 directives by enhancing cybersecurity resilience. ISO 27001:2022’s focus on threat intelligence and incident response aligns with NIS 2’s objectives, fortifying organisations against cyber threats and ensuring continuity of critical services.

How Does ISO 27001:2022 Integrate with Other ISO Standards?

ISO 27001 integrates effectively with other ISO standards, such as ISO 9001 and ISO 14001, creating synergies that enhance overall regulatory alignment and operational efficiency. This integration facilitates a unified approach to managing quality, environmental, and security standards within an organisation.

How Can Organisations Achieve Comprehensive Regulatory Alignment with ISO 27001:2022?

Organisations can achieve comprehensive regulatory alignment by synchronising their security practices with broader requirements. Our platform, ISMS.online, offers extensive certification support, providing tools and resources to simplify the process. Industry associations and webinars further enhance understanding and implementation, ensuring organisations remain compliant and competitive.

Can ISO 27001:2022 Effectively Mitigate New Security Challenges?

Emerging threats, including cyber-attacks and data breaches, necessitate robust strategies. ISO 27001:2022 offers a comprehensive framework for managing risks, emphasising a risk-based approach to identify, assess, and mitigate potential threats.

How Does ISO 27001:2022 Enhance Cyber Threat Mitigation?

ISO 27001:2022 strengthens mitigation through structured risk management processes. By implementing Annex A controls, organisations can proactively address vulnerabilities, reducing cyber incidents. This proactive stance builds trust with clients and partners, differentiating businesses in the market.

What Measures Ensure Cloud Security with ISO 27001:2022?

Cloud security challenges are prevalent as organisations migrate to digital platforms. ISO 27001:2022 includes specific controls for cloud environments, ensuring data integrity and safeguarding against unauthorised access. These measures foster customer loyalty and enhance market share.

How Does ISO 27001:2022 Prevent Data Breaches?

Data breaches pose significant risks, impacting reputation and financial stability. ISO 27001:2022 establishes comprehensive protocols, ensuring continuous monitoring and improvement. Certified organisations often experience fewer breaches, maintaining effective security measures.

How Can Organisations Adapt to Evolving Threat Landscapes?

Organisations can adapt ISO 27001:2022 to evolving threats by regularly updating security practices. This adaptability ensures alignment with emerging threats, maintaining robust defences. By demonstrating a commitment to security, certified organisations gain a competitive edge and are preferred by clients and partners.

Cultivating a Security Culture with ISO 27001 Compliance

ISO 27001 serves as a cornerstone in developing a robust security culture by emphasising awareness and comprehensive training. This approach not only fortifies your organisation’s security posture but also aligns with current cybersecurity standards.

How to Enhance Security Awareness and Training

Security awareness is integral to ISO 27001:2022, ensuring your employees understand their roles in protecting information assets. Tailored training programmes empower staff to recognise and respond to threats effectively, minimising incident risks.

What Are Effective Training Strategies?

Organisations can enhance training by:

  • Interactive Workshops: Conduct engaging sessions that reinforce security protocols.
  • E-Learning Modules: Provide flexible online courses for continuous learning.
  • Simulated Exercises: Implement phishing simulations and incident response drills to test readiness.

 

How Does Leadership Influence Security Culture?

Leadership plays a pivotal role in embedding a security-focused culture. By prioritising security initiatives and leading by example, management instils responsibility and vigilance throughout the organisation, making security integral to the organisational ethos.

What Are the Long-Term Benefits of Security Awareness?

ISO 27001:2022 offers sustained improvements and risk reduction, enhancing credibility and providing a competitive edge. Organisations report increased operational efficiency and reduced costs, supporting growth and opening new opportunities.

How Does ISMS.online Support Your Security Culture?

Our platform, ISMS.online, aids organisations by offering tools for tracking training progress and facilitating real-time collaboration. This ensures that security awareness is maintained and continuously improved, aligning with ISO 27001:2022’s objectives.


Navigating Challenges in ISO 27001:2022 Implementation

Implementing ISO 27001:2022 involves overcoming significant challenges, such as managing limited resources and addressing resistance to change. These hurdles must be addressed to achieve certification and enhance your organisation’s information security posture.

Identifying Common Implementation Hurdles

Organisations often face difficulties in allocating adequate resources, both financial and human, to meet ISO 27001:2022’s comprehensive requirements. Resistance to adopting new security practices can also impede progress, as employees may be hesitant to alter established workflows.

Efficient Resource Management Strategies

To optimise resource management, prioritise tasks based on risk assessment outcomes, focusing on high-impact areas (ISO 27001:2022 Clause 6.1). Our platform, ISMS.online, automates compliance tasks, reducing manual effort and ensuring critical areas receive the necessary attention.

Overcoming Resistance to Change

Effective communication and training are key to mitigating resistance. Engage employees in the implementation process by highlighting the benefits of ISO 27001:2022, such as enhanced data protection and GDPR alignment. Regular training sessions can foster a culture of security awareness and compliance.

Enhancing Implementation with ISMS.online

ISMS.online plays a pivotal role in overcoming these challenges by providing tools that enhance collaboration and streamline documentation. Our platform supports integrated compliance strategies, aligning ISO 27001 with standards like ISO 9001, thereby improving overall efficiency and regulatory adherence. By simplifying the implementation process, ISMS.online helps your organisation achieve and maintain ISO 27001:2022 certification effectively.

What are the key differences between ISO 27001:2022 and earlier versions?

ISO 27001:2022 introduces pivotal updates to meet evolving security demands, enhancing its relevance in today’s digital environment. A significant change is the expansion of Annex A controls, now totaling 93, which include new measures for cloud security and threat intelligence. These additions underscore the growing importance of digital ecosystems and proactive threat management.

Impact on Compliance and Certification
The updates in ISO 27001:2022 require adjustments in compliance processes. Your organisation must integrate these new controls into its Information Security Management Systems (ISMS), ensuring alignment with the latest requirements (ISO 27001:2022 Clause 6.1). This integration streamlines certification by providing a comprehensive framework for managing information risks.

New Controls and Their Significance
The introduction of controls focused on cloud security and threat intelligence is noteworthy. These controls help your organisation protect data in complex digital environments, addressing vulnerabilities unique to cloud systems. By implementing these measures, you can enhance your security posture and reduce the risk of data breaches.

Adapting to New Requirements
To adapt to these changes, your organisation should conduct a thorough gap analysis to identify areas needing improvement. This involves assessing current practices against the updated standard, ensuring alignment with new controls. By using platforms like ISMS.online, you can automate compliance tasks, reducing manual effort and enhancing efficiency.

These updates highlight ISO 27001:2022’s commitment to addressing contemporary security challenges, ensuring your organisation remains resilient against emerging threats.

Why should Compliance Officers prioritise ISO 27001:2022?

ISO 27001:2022 is pivotal for compliance officers seeking to enhance their organisation’s information security framework. Its structured methodology for regulatory adherence and risk management is indispensable in today’s interconnected environment.

Navigating Regulatory Frameworks
ISO 27001:2022 aligns with global standards like GDPR, providing a comprehensive framework that ensures data protection and privacy. By adhering to its guidelines, you can confidently navigate complex regulatory landscapes, reducing legal risks and enhancing governance (ISO 27001:2022 Clause 6.1).

Proactive Risk Management
The standard’s risk-based approach enables organisations to systematically identify, assess, and mitigate risks. This proactive stance minimises vulnerabilities and fosters a culture of continuous improvement, essential for maintaining a robust security posture. Compliance officers can utilise ISO 27001:2022 to implement effective risk treatment strategies, ensuring resilience against emerging threats.

Enhancing Organisational Security
ISO 27001:2022 significantly enhances your organisation’s security posture by embedding security practices into core business processes. This integration boosts operational efficiency and builds trust with stakeholders, positioning your organisation as a leader in information security.

Effective Implementation Strategies
Compliance officers can implement ISO 27001:2022 effectively by utilising platforms like ISMS.online, which streamline efforts through automated risk assessments and real-time monitoring. Engaging stakeholders and fostering a security-aware culture are crucial steps in embedding the standard’s principles across your organisation.

By prioritising ISO 27001:2022, you not only safeguard your organisation’s data but also drive strategic advantages in a competitive market.

How does ISO 27001:2022 enhance security frameworks?

ISO 27001:2022 establishes a comprehensive framework for managing information security, focusing on a risk-based approach. This approach allows your organisation to systematically identify, assess, and address potential threats, ensuring robust protection of sensitive data and adherence to international standards.

Key Strategies for Threat Mitigation

  • Conducting Risk Assessments: Thorough evaluations identify vulnerabilities and potential threats (ISO 27001:2022 Clause 6.1), forming the basis for targeted security measures.
  • Implementing Security Controls: Annex A controls are utilised to address specific risks, ensuring a holistic approach to threat prevention.
  • Continuous Monitoring: Regular reviews of security practices allow adaptation to evolving threats, maintaining the effectiveness of your security posture.

Data Protection and Privacy Alignment
ISO 27001:2022 integrates security practices into organisational processes, aligning with regulations like GDPR. This ensures that personal data is handled securely, reducing legal risks and enhancing stakeholder trust.

Building a Proactive Security Culture
By fostering security awareness, ISO 27001:2022 promotes continuous improvement and vigilance. This proactive stance minimises vulnerabilities and strengthens your organisation’s overall security posture. Our platform, ISMS.online, supports these efforts with tools for real-time monitoring and automated risk assessments, positioning your organisation as a leader in information security.

Incorporating ISO 27001:2022 into your security strategy not only fortifies defences but also enhances your organisation’s reputation and competitive advantage.

What advantages does ISO 27001:2022 offer to CEOs?

ISO 27001:2022 is a strategic asset for CEOs, enhancing organisational resilience and operational efficiency through a risk-based methodology. This standard aligns security protocols with business objectives, ensuring robust information security management.

How does ISO 27001:2022 enhance strategic business integration?

Risk Management Framework:
ISO 27001:2022 provides a comprehensive framework for identifying and mitigating risks, safeguarding your assets, and ensuring business continuity.

Regulatory Compliance Standards:
By aligning with global standards like GDPR, it minimises legal risks and strengthens governance, essential for maintaining market trust.

What are the competitive advantages of ISO 27001:2022?

Reputation Enhancement:
Certification demonstrates a commitment to security, boosting customer trust and satisfaction. Organisations often report increased client confidence, leading to higher retention rates.

Global Market Access:
With acceptance in over 150 countries, ISO 27001:2022 facilitates entry into international markets, offering a competitive edge.

How can ISO 27001:2022 drive business growth?

Operational Efficiency:
Streamlined processes reduce security incidents, lowering costs and improving efficiency.

Innovation and Digital Transformation:
By fostering a culture of security awareness, it supports digital transformation and innovation, driving business growth.

Integrating ISO 27001:2022 into your strategic planning aligns security measures with organisational goals, ensuring they support broader business objectives. Our platform, ISMS.online, simplifies compliance, offering tools for real-time monitoring and risk management, ensuring your organisation remains secure and competitive.

How to facilitate digital transformation with ISO 27001:2022

ISO 27001:2022 provides a comprehensive framework for organisations transitioning to digital platforms, ensuring data protection and adherence to international standards. This standard is pivotal in managing digital risks and enhancing security measures.

How to Manage Digital Risks Effectively
ISO 27001:2022 offers a risk-based approach to identify and mitigate vulnerabilities. By conducting thorough risk assessments and implementing Annex A controls, your organisation can proactively address potential threats and maintain robust security measures. This approach aligns with evolving cybersecurity requirements, ensuring your digital assets are safeguarded.

How to Foster Secure Digital Innovation
Integrating ISO 27001:2022 into your development lifecycle ensures security is prioritised from design to deployment. This reduces breach risks and enhances data protection, allowing your organisation to pursue innovation confidently while maintaining compliance.

How to Build a Culture of Digital Security
Promoting a culture of security involves emphasising awareness and training. Implement comprehensive programmes that equip your team with the skills needed to recognise and respond to digital threats effectively. This proactive stance fosters a security-conscious environment, essential for successful digital transformation.

By adopting ISO 27001:2022, your organisation can navigate digital complexities, ensuring security and compliance are integral to your strategies. This alignment not only protects sensitive information but also enhances operational efficiency and competitive advantage.

What are the key considerations for implementing ISO 27001:2022?

Implementing ISO 27001:2022 involves meticulous planning and resource management to ensure successful integration. Key considerations include strategic resource allocation, engaging key personnel, and fostering a culture of continuous improvement.

Strategic Resource Allocation
Prioritising tasks based on comprehensive risk assessments is essential. Your organisation should focus on high-impact areas, ensuring they receive adequate attention as outlined in ISO 27001:2022 Clause 6.1. Utilising platforms like ISMS.online can automate tasks, reducing manual effort and optimising resource use.

Engaging Key Personnel
Securing buy-in from key personnel early in the process is vital. This involves fostering collaboration and aligning with organisational goals. Clear communication of the benefits and objectives of ISO 27001:2022 helps mitigate resistance and encourages active participation.

Fostering a Culture of Continuous Improvement
Regularly reviewing and updating your Information Security Management Systems (ISMS) to adapt to evolving threats is crucial. This involves conducting periodic audits and management reviews to identify areas for enhancement, as specified in ISO 27001:2022 Clause 9.3.

Steps for Successful Implementation
To ensure successful implementation, your organisation should:

  • Conduct a gap analysis to identify areas needing improvement.
  • Develop a comprehensive project plan with clear objectives and timelines.
  • Utilise tools and resources, such as ISMS.online, to streamline processes and enhance efficiency.
  • Foster a culture of security awareness through regular training and communication.

By addressing these considerations, your organisation can effectively implement ISO 27001:2022, enhancing its security posture and ensuring alignment with international standards.

Start your ISO 27001:2022 journey with ISMS.online. Schedule a personalised demo now to see how our comprehensive solutions can simplify your compliance and streamline your implementation processes. Enhance your security framework and boost operational efficiency with our cutting-edge tools.

How Can ISMS.online Streamline Your Compliance Journey?

  • Automate and Simplify Tasks: Our platform reduces manual effort and enhances precision through automation. The intuitive interface guides you step-by-step, ensuring all necessary criteria are met efficiently.
  • What Support Does ISMS.online Offer?: With features like automated risk assessments and real-time monitoring, ISMS.online helps maintain a robust security posture. Our solution aligns with ISO 27001:2022’s risk-based approach, proactively addressing vulnerabilities (ISO 27001:2022 Clause 6.1).
  • Why Schedule a Personalised Demo?: Discover how our solutions can transform your strategy. A personalised demo illustrates how ISMS.online can meet your organisation’s specific needs, offering insights into our capabilities and benefits.

How Does ISMS.online Enhance Collaboration and Efficiency?

Our platform fosters seamless teamwork, enabling your organisation to achieve ISO 27001:2022 certification. By utilising ISMS.online, your team can enhance its security framework, improve operational efficiency, and gain a competitive edge. Book a demo today to experience the transformative power of ISMS.online and ensure your organisation remains secure and compliant.


This article is part of our IO educational content range and was produced using AI.

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ISO 27001

Legislation and Adaptation: How Compliance Experts Are Staying Ahead of Regulatory Change

When GDPR came into effect in 2018, it set a new precedent for data protection. The regulation strengthened individual privacy rights in the EU, requiring organisations to restructure data processing activities, update privacy policies and implement appropriate security measures.   More recently, the EU AI Act became a benchmark for the regulation of AI systems, with a risk-based classification system. To ensure compliance, many in-scope organisations had to adopt new processes, rethink existing processes and review how entire teams carried out their roles.   But regulatory change isn’t all landmark legislation. For many organisations, regulations like the Data Use and Access Act (DUAA), require smaller, strategic changes as opposed to an overhaul of processes and operations.   In a recent roundtable, we spoke to six compliance professionals who shared their expertise on absorbing new regulations and frameworks into their existing compliance programmes.  Getting the Foundations Right  For our experts, the first consideration when adapting to a new regulation is getting the foundations right. This means understanding the regulation’s requirements and how they differ from those of regulations with which they’re already compliant:  What changes under the new regulation?   What does their organisation already do that aligns with the regulation’s requirements?  Which processes need to be amended rather than completely changed?  Which processes need more thorough review?  What will employees need to do?  What will customers require?  Working Collaboratively  Jack Salsbury, Head of IT and Information Security at Autotech Group, shares that taking a collaborative approach across governance, risk and compliance, rather than treating it exclusively as an IT or compliance team issue, is key. “It’s really important to get a foundation of communication and cross-function working in place. If I update a policy or create a control, the governance needs to be there to communicate that across the business effectively.”  “You can put these things forward to shareholders and C-suite, and often it’s very quick for them to say yes, but there are so many elements of the communication piece to ensure that the organisation actually follows the policies, procedures and controls you’ve built,” he adds.  Employee Engagement  Similarly, our experts stress the importance of employee engagement with – and understanding of – a compliance programme. Joanne Ballard, Data Protection and Compliance Officer at Maintel, says that employee engagement can be encouraged in different ways. Businesses should assess what works for employees. For example, consider whether approaches like surveys or in-person conversations are more effective. “It’s being able to vary your approach for your audience and trying to find something that connects with everyone.”   She adds that organisations should consider where they can streamline processes for employees. “For example, we’ve created a single form covering Data Protection Impact Assessments (DPIAs), Fundamental Rights Impact Assessments (FRIAs) and AI Impact Assessments (AIIAs) for staff to complete during the supplier review process, rather than requiring three separate forms.”  Sam Peters, CPO at IO, agrees that minimising the compliance workload for employees is an important factor in fostering a culture of compliance. “We have a project in the IO platform for each department, so the department leads can manage the operating procedures for their team in one place,” he says. “When a new starter joins, we include some of those core processes in the policy pack, so they’re not just seeing the policies for compliance with our management system. They’re seeing their team’s key policies at the same time.”  Addressing Regulatory Change  With the right foundations in place, how do proactive organisations absorb new regulations?  Integrating Compliance Management  Dariusz Cieśla, VP of Product and Strategy at AI Clearing, says that mapping standards and creating one set of policies and procedures, where appropriate, can reduce friction. He uses ISO standards as an example: “If a business has a context of the organisation policy, with internal and external issues, they’d usually have to create that for each ISO standard, even though the documents are virtually the same.   “AI Clearing has created one set of internal and external issues, and if we have more, we add them to the list. Similarly, we can review and update procedures rather than creating entirely new ones. These policies and procedures can evolve as new standards are added to the management system.”  He adds that organisations can use this method to verify whether new policies or procedures are required or whether existing documentation can be amended.  Senior Leadership Support  A governance and compliance professional in the software industry advises compliance officers to focus on leadership engagement and ensuring responsibility for certain operating procedures sits with the relevant departments, rather than just compliance or IT teams.  “For example, if your business is working towards ISO 42001 compliance and looking at Annex 6, you may choose to make it the responsibility of the research and development department to determine what the AI software development lifecycle (SDLC) is, working in collaboration with the compliance team.”  A cybersecurity director at an industrial machinery supplier agrees, pointing out that aligning responsibilities with the correct areas of the business is a challenge many compliance teams face. “When you’re implementing ISO standards, the standard tells you that you must do something, but it doesn’t tell you how,” they explains   “The business seeks those answers, and we could certainly provide them, but then we're dictating the procedures and we're dictating the best practices. That’s something that IT operations needs to take ownership of.”  Addressing Challenges   Shadow AI  Our State of Information Security Report findings revealed that more than a third (36%) of organisations have experienced employees using generative AI tools without organisational permission or guidance, often referred to as shadow AI. The experience of our compliance experts reflects that challenge.   They conclude that employee education, such as training that ensures staff understand the risks and consequences of shadow AI use, is one of the most effective ways of preventing it.  Policy Suitability  Autotech Group’s Jack Salsbury says that often, gaps and issues within policies and procedures will be identified through use over time. “As the policies evolve, as they get followed, and as end users start understanding those policies, that's where some of those gaps can start coming through.”   For businesses, this means undertaking regular reviews of documentation – treating compliance as a continuous cycle, rather than a check box list.  Risk Management  The governance and compliance professional suggests organisations hold regular risk review meetings based on each risk’s review due date and concentrate on the risks they’ve chosen to treat. “Choose a risk score above which your organisation will treat, not tolerate, a risk, and use that as a baseline for risk decision making,” they say.  New Regulatory Requirements  As organisations work to achieve compliance with existing regulations and standards, it can be difficult to keep an eye on what’s on the horizon. Maintel’s Joanne Ballard shares that she stays informed about regulatory developments through external newsletters from legal partners, industry publications, and a legal AI tool called Wordsmith. By using this combination of approaches, the business saves a considerable amount of time.  “It's reduced what used to be probably a fortnight's work down to a couple of hours,” she says.  Evolving with Regulatory Change  The regulatory landscape is becoming increasingly complex. Alongside legislative requirements, many organisations now require partners and suppliers to be compliant with frameworks like ISO 27001, ISO 42001, SOC 2, and NIST CSF.   The organisations that flourish in this environment, absorb new regulations swiftly, and build real resilience will be those that innovate and adapt. A joined-up approach to compliance across the core disciplines of information security, data privacy and AI allows businesses to build a foundation of resilience, enabling them to absorb new regulatory requirements with confidence.   Expand Your Knowledge Blog: The Cyber Resilience Act Just Got Real: It’s Time to Build Structured Governance Blog: How Silent Compliance Drift Could Harm Organisations, and What to Do About It Podcast: Phishing for Trouble S2 E10: Built to Last: How Compliance Enables Business Resilience
ISO 27001

Fright Night: The Spookiest Cyber Incidents of 2026

Last year, we shared The Spine-Tingling Cyber Incidents Scaring Us This Halloween, a blog featuring commentary from IO’s executive team on some of the most hair-raising cyber incidents of 2025. From supply chain attacks to AI-powered deepfakes, the team discussed a range of incidents, and shared key steps organisations can take to defend themselves. In this year’s Halloween special blog, the IO executive team are back to discuss the cyber incidents that gave them the creeps in 2026! Telus Digital – Credential Theft Our CEO, Chris Newton-Smith, says: In March, Telus Digital, a business process outsourcing and technology company and subsidiary of Telus Corporation, confirmed a major data breach. Cybercrime group ShinyHunters claimed credit, sharing that it had exploited the company’s Google Cloud Platform credentials and OAuth obtained in a 2025 Salesloft Drift breach – an attack our CCO, Ross, flagged in last year’s Halloween blog. This enabled them to access Telus Digital’s systems over the course of several months. The group claimed to have exfiltrated almost a petabyte of data, including source code. Customers’ personally identifiable information and call centre recordings, over the course of the attack. ShinyHunters reportedly demanded $65 million from Telus Digital in exchange for deleting the data, but the company refused to communicate with the group. This layered attack leveraged data stolen during one breach to launch another, months after the original compromise. For organisations, robust credential hygiene, third-party risk management and stringent vendor security requirements such as the controls outlined in information security standard ISO 27001 are now vital. Businesses can embed controls to manage credential lifecycle management, strategically assess and treat vendor risk, and limit supplier access to sensitive data to minimise incident impact. However, as attackers continue to target supply chains, it’s an organisation’s incident response, recovery efforts and communication with customers and regulators that will become increasingly important. ASOS – Social Engineering Our CMO, Dave Holloway, says: Respondents to our State of Information Security Report rank social engineering among the biggest challenges they face in information security (35%), after the information security skills gap (42%), the rise of “as-a-service” cyber threats like phishing-as-a-service (39%), and securing emerging technologies such as AI, ML and blockchain (39%). One in five (21%) have experienced a social engineering incident in the last 12 months. The recent social engineering attack on online fashion retailer ASOS demonstrates why the attack method is top of mind for security leaders. On 6th October, customers received a push notification through the ASOS app that hackers had accessed company data, with actors threatening to leak stolen records – a high-pressure and extremely public extortion tactic. Attackers gained access by impersonating a trusted contact to obtain an ASOS employee’s login credentials. Customers’ personal data, including names and contact information, were exposed, leading to fears of targeted phishing attempts. ASOS stated it “took immediate action to restrict access to the notification platforms and [was] working with internal and external specialist advisers, as well as all relevant authorities.” Despite this, shares in the business fell as much as 13.2% after threat actors sent the push notification to customers. Employees are an organisation’s first line of defence, and those defences are increasingly being tested by unscrupulous threat actors. Organisations must ensure their employees have the knowledge needed to identify a potential attack and a clear process to report it. Encouragingly, our data shows that the majority (69%) of organisations plan to increase investment in employee cybersecurity awareness and training programs, and just under a third (31%) had seen tangible benefits from employee training on security awareness. Police National Legal Database – Misconfiguration Exploit Our CPO, Sam Peters, says: An attack on the Police National Legal Database (PNLD), an online legal reference service, exposed the contact information of over 100,000 police officers, police staff and criminal justice professionals in July. The data included verified identities, employer information and contact information. The type of information revealed in this breach put impacted parties at risk of harassment, downstream social engineering attacks, and could even have presented a credible threat to life for officers working on undercover assignments. It’s thought that a misconfiguration in a Microsoft Power Pages portal was the source of this breach, rather than a software vulnerability. Experts theorise that attackers were able to take advantage of the web role of Anonymous Users being given overly broad access to Dataverse records through public Microsoft Power Pages portals, which allowed them to access data via its portal Web API. Microsoft provides a control that blocks unauthenticated users from reading Dataverse data while allowing public form submissions; in this instance, it appears this was not configured. Attackers continue to seek out and exploit these vulnerabilities; our latest State of Information Security Report revealed that 31% of organisations experienced one or more data breaches in the last 12 months. Incidents like the PNLD breach emphasise the need for foundational information security best practices as well as regular risk review and oversight. The ISO 27001 standard provides a structured framework to support the implementation of these best practices. Organisations must assess and implement necessary security controls including configuration management, secure authentication, management of technical vulnerabilities and more. Cisco – SD-WAN Zero-Day Vulnerabilities Our CCO, Ross Down, says: In 2026, the Cisco Catalyst Software Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) architecture has experienced multiple vulnerabilities, the most recent being CVE-2026-76504 in September. CVE-2026-76504 is a vulnerability in the API session-based authentication management of Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager, which could allow an unauthenticated attacker to access an impacted system with admin privileges. Cisco shared that the vulnerability is “due to improper handling of URI encoding in an HTTP request, which allows the request to bypass an authentication rule that is intended to restrict access to a specific API endpoint.” The business shared advice for customers to support them in identifying system compromise and released indicators of compromise, including a warning that threat actors are using “%6a” as the URI-encoded character “j” in malicious requests. The vulnerability is actively being exploited and affects Cisco Catalyst SD-WAN Manager regardless of system configuration. With no known workaround, organisations must upgrade to a fixed software release. Google Threat Intelligence Group recently shared that vulnerability exploitation is rising – the number of vulnerabilities exploited increased from an average of 10.5 per month in 2025 to an average of 18 per month from January-August 2026. Vulnerability management and patch management now play significant roles in an organisation’s overall security management, enabling businesses to strengthen security, reduce risk and ensure regulatory compliance. Ernst & Young – Supply Chain Compromise Our CFO, Jon Orpen, says: Earlier this year, attackers compromised service management platform Checkmarx, used by accounting firm Ernst & Young (EY) to support tax-related work it performs on behalf of its clients. The unauthorised third party accessed the platform and downloaded documents relating to multiple firms using EY’s tax services, including Goldman Sachs’ wealth management business and Man Group. Individuals linked to these clients were later told their personal or financial information had been compromised. Our State of Information Security Report reveals that over half (51%) of businesses have experienced a cybersecurity or information security incident caused by a third-party vendor or supply chain partner in the last 12 months. 22% have experienced more than one incident. Repercussions of these incidents included data breaches (38%), financial loss or unplanned costs such as remediation, fines or legal fees (35%), delays or disruptions across the supply chain or service delivery (34%) and temporary system outage or operational disruption (33%). For organisations, the challenge of building resilience now extends well beyond the perimeter of their own network and systems. A breach involving a supply chain partner can raise questions about your own data privacy practices. As such, businesses should ensure they implement diligent supplier management processes including supplier risk categorisation and preferring suppliers with demonstrable approaches to information security practices like ISO 27001. Hugging Face – AI Agent Attack Our CTO, Tyler Downs, says: OpenAI made headlines worldwide in July when around 1,200 AI agents escaped a sandbox environment and coordinated an attack on AI and ML platform, Hugging Face. The agents were also discovered to have posted thousands of messages on message boards to coordinate a sandbox escape, exploiting a vulnerability in the JFrog Artifactory tool they were given. Headlines at the time suggested the attack was a sign of things to come – AI sentience and even worldwide collapse. Evan Hubinger, a safety researcher at Anthropic, was widely quoted warning that there is a greater than 10% chance AI could “kill all humans” within the next decade. The reality, however, is that the OpenAI agents were operating under reduced safeguards; security practitioners criticised OpenAI’s inadequate sandboxing as well as lack of log monitoring of the software activities. TrendAI described the attack: “OpenAI deliberately loosened the guardrails to gauge raw capability, and the models used that latitude to solve the problem in a way no one had intended—in a sense, gaming the test rather than failing it.” For businesses, strengthening baseline security measures is the best way to defend against attacks of this type. The OpenAI agents made multiple server-side request forgery (SSRF) attempts against Hugging Face before one was successful. Kapersky recommends organisations establish rules within defensive alert telemetry to escalate event priority when volume spikes and conduct security team drills to ensure key personnel are equipped to respond quickly to key events. Bonus: PHP – PHP2Shell Vulnerabilities We couldn’t share the most spine-chilling cyber incidents of the year without discussing last week’s PHP2Shell vulnerabilities - CVE-2026-109618 and CVE-2026-109619. The vulnerabilities allow an attacker to execute code or expose sensitive process memory. PHP powers around 70% of the world’s websites, including platforms like WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla. PHO released a patch on October 21st at 14:00 UTC; businesses either rushed to update or, in many cases, took websites offline entirely until the patch could be applied. In the UK, 32 government services were forced offline, with another four partially unavailable. Tech minister Baroness Lloyd of Effra said this “resulted largely from precautionary measures taken to protect systems while security updates and mitigations are applied.” The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) also sent 50,000 warnings to businesses and other organisations ahead of the public disclosure. Despite this, Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince shared that the company had spotted thousands of exploitation attempts in the 10 hours before the vulnerabilities were publicly announced. The figure “jumped to tens of thousands in the 45 minutes post announcement, hundreds of thousands within 2 hours, and millions now.” Building Resilience, Reducing Risk Organisations contend with increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks, from AI-powered threats to supply chain compromise. Implementing best practice standards like ISO 27001 for information security management, ISO 27701 for data privacy management and ISO 42001 for AI management supports organisations in building strong governance across all three disciplines – and the foundations for real resilience in the face of evolving cyber threats. Ready to act? Our Cyber Hygiene Checklist provides ten best practices businesses can implement to bolster their cyber defences. Download your Cyber Hygiene Checklist Expand Your Knowledge Blog: AI Doesn't Need to End Humanity to Demand Better Governance Podcast: Phishing for Trouble S2 E11: Beyond the Headlines: AI, Regulation and the Reality of 2026 Blog: Beyond the £300m Headline: The M&S Cyberattack, Reconstructed
ISO 27001

How Silent Compliance Drift Could Harm Organisations, and What to Do About It

Eighteen months ago, agentic AI barely registered on the boardroom agenda of most organisations. Now 40% of large enterprises claim to be scaling up deployments, and with good reason. Eighty percent of individuals polled by McKinsey claim the technology has improved their productivity, and half say it helps them make better decisions. But it’s also ringing alarm bells across the cybersecurity community. The stories that tend to catch the eye involve agents that have either gone rogue or been manipulated by hackers. But there’s another, little acknowledged threat that could have serious consequences for organisations operating long-running agents: silent compliance drift. Why Governance Can’t Live in a Prompt For a technology that barely registered on the boardroom agenda 18 months ago agentic AI is making a surprising amount of noise in cybersecurity circles. But not many people are talking about this specific governance challenge. It’s articulated well in a recent article on the topic. The author argues that long-running agents can quietly “forget” the governance rules hardcoded into their prompts at the start of a project. The concern is that, as the AI begins to process large amounts of data, “context windows” grow to the point where the rules set down at the start get ignored in favour of newer information. It’s described as the "lost in the middle" phenomenon: a critical architectural failure that can’t simply be fixed by expanding the context window to a million tokens, or using retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines. RAG might be able to retrieve the relevant compliance rule, but the LLM may still ignore it, the author argues. The best these efforts can do is postpone the inevitable point at which a problem occurs. They can’t turn a probabilistic model into a deterministic rule engine. Separating Rules from Models The article author has some clear ideas about what should happen next. He says that a deterministic policy/rules engine should live outside the LLM, and that the addition of an orchestration layer will check any actions proposed by the model against the compliance constraints this engine generates. This means that non-compliant actions will be stopped before they are executed. To get going, organisations should check and revalidate rules during long workflows, and never assume that an initial prompt will remain effective, the author continues. Compliance controls should live in a deterministic policy engine, so actions are blocked before they hit production. And agentic working memory should be separated from the rules governing what it’s allowed to do (which must be immutable). Richard Harbridge, Microsoft principal industry advisor at ShareGate, explains that the most concerning part of silent drift is that everything appears to be working normally. However, in reality, agents could be accessing the wrong data, taking actions outside policy, making incorrect changes, or creating retention problems. It’s an auditability as well as a compliance issue, he says. “If something goes wrong, organisations may need to explain what the agent did, why it was allowed to do it, what permissions it had and what controls were in place at the time,” Harbridge tells IO (formerly ISMS.online). “If you cannot reconstruct that afterwards, the governance problem becomes much harder to manage.” Daniel Meyer, CTO at Camunda, argues that one approach to the challenges outlined in the article would be to define which decisions an agent can make autonomously (and which require human approval) prior to deployment. “In practice, this means re-designing processes around what AI can do, rather than simply adapting existing processes to accommodate AI,” he tells IO. He then advocates an orchestration layer similar to that suggested in the article, which “coordinates agents, people and systems across the end-to-end process” and has governance and approvals built into the design. “This approach enforces controls between an agent’s decision and its action, while maintaining a full audit trail for complete visibility into agent behaviour,” Meyer says. “With structured guardrails in place, organisations can move beyond isolated agentic AI initiatives and deploy agents in business-critical processes to improve operational efficiency or customer experience, safely and with confidence.” Delivering Continuous Governance What might such an approach look like in practice? ShareGate’s Harbridge argues that organisations ultimately need to answer several key questions of each agent: Who owns it? What can it access and do? What constrains it? Can we see when something changes? Can we prove what it actually did? The key is managing the agent continuously over time, as permissions, data sources, integrations and even purpose change, Harbridge continues. “It is not enough to believe the right controls are in place. As AI becomes more capable, organisations need the visibility to continuously validate what is actually happening,” he says “The real governance test is not just whether an agent was safe when it started. It is whether it continues to operate within the boundaries you intended as things change around it.” ISO 42001 – the international standard for establishing, implementing, maintaining, and continually improving an Artificial Intelligence Management System (AIMS) – can help organisations with this, providing the kind of “structured guardrails” Camunda’s Meyer advocates. “ISO 42001 can help an organisation put clearer ownership, processes, risk management and oversight around how it uses AI,” says Harbridge. However, there’s still work to do, he acknowledges. “What ISO 42001 does not do is tell you exactly how to technically stop a specific agent from breaking a particular rule,” Harbridge concludes. “Organisations still have to turn those governance expectations into practical controls around identity, permissions, monitoring and evidence.” When they put these plans into action, it’s equally vital that this shouldn’t happen in a siloed way. AI governance efforts should always take place in combination with information security and privacy compliance. After all, as those agentic permissions, data sources, integrations and purpose evolve over time, an agent might create new security issues or privacy risks. In practice, this could mean following ISO 42001 for AI, ISO 27001 for information security and ISO 27701 for privacy best practice. Do this in a continuous, joined-up way, and organisations can spot changes, reassess risk and ensure controls still work on an ongoing basis. For those struggling to securely manage and govern a powerful new technology, that would be an invaluable starting point. Expand Your Knowledge Blog: How Agentic AI is Creating a New Class of Risk for Cybersecurity Teams Blog: Is an Agentic AI Security Breach Inevitable in 2026? Podcast: Phishing for Trouble S2 E11: Beyond the Headlines: AI, Regulation and the Reality of 2026
ISO 27001

How MAAS Aviation Built a Robust and Sustainable ISO 27001-Compliant ISMS

The IO platform has provided a structured starting point for our ISO 27001 implementation and helped us work systematically through the relevant clauses and controls.
ISO 27001

It’s Time to Prepare for Post-Quantum Cryptography

You'd better mind your PQC Ps and Qs. After AI, quantum computing will likely be the next big thing in tech. And just like AI, quantum computing already has its own doomsday scenario. In quantum's Hollywood movie nightmare, a computer can do ridiculously complex computations in seconds that would take a classical computer thousands of years. The computer uses this superpower to brute force encryption keys generated using the de facto RSA algorithm. That gets it into your Bitcoin wallet, your enterprise backups, and sensitive messaging apps that were previously encrypted from end to end. It also gets into everyone else's. This hasn't happened yet, but mathematician Peter Shor laid the groundwork for it in 1994 when he invented an algorithm that could theoretically crack RSA using a quantum computer. Since then, people have been trying to build one. The problem is creating enough qbits (a quantum version of a regular binary computer bit) to do the math. Qbits are fragile, so developing such a machine, which we call a cryptographically relevant quantum computer or CRQC, is a tough problem but people are working on it. The NIST IR 8547 draft on the topic says that CRQCs don't exist yet.  Not that a nation state would necessarily let on if it had one. Anyway, it's coming sooner or later. The Cloud Security Alliance cites a consensus estimate for a cryptographically relevant quantum computer by 2035 at the outside. So, shouldn't the world be getting ready to avoid having all of its secrets revealed? Older readers will remember the panic in 1999 as people realized that the year 2000 could break the world's computers thanks to a software bug that made old computers incompatible with the new millennium. Engineers worked frantically to mitigate the problem and succeeded well enough so that laypeople could crow about how the whole thing was blown out of proportion. Now governments on both sides of the Atlantic believe we should be making similar preparations for the quantum era. Luckily for us, mathematicians have already created encryption algorithms that will be immune to quantum computation. These fall under the umbrella of post-quantum cryptography (PQC), and they will save us, but only if we all start using them. The UK's National Cyber Security Center has already proposed key dates for the move to PQC, while in the US the Treasury Department has announced its own initiative. The 2035 Deadline Starts Now The first major milestone on the NCSC's proposed timeline falls in 2028, with instructions for organizations to define their migration goals and conduct a full discovery exercise for data that should be re-encrypted using PQC. It recommends that organizations execute the higher-priority migrations by 2031, with a view to migrating the rest by 2035. The Treasury Department's announcement of its Quantum-Readiness Task Force follows the White House's Executive Order 14412 in June 2026: "Securing the Nation Against Advanced Cryptographic Attacks". It focuses on helping the financial sector in particular transition to PQC. These efforts have appeared now for at least three reasons: First, no one really knows when CRQCs might arrive. 2035 is a guess, and we're notoriously bad at predicting the future. Second, building new algorithms into products takes years, especially cryptographic ones, which are extremely complex (hence the old warning for developers: "never roll your own cryptographic algorithms". So, a deadline nine years hence only works if you begin discovery now. Third, that deadline has technically already passed. A concept known as harvest now, decrypt later (HNDL) puts all today's data at risk. Malicious actors who steal that data today would be able to sit on it and decrypt it once quantum computing allows it. That is a problem for long-lived data records. A Europol analysis of this threat places policy makers and government at particularly high risk for HNDL. Citizens and private individuals are at low to medium risk, but high net-worth individuals who are worth the quantum computing time still make sensitive targets. So, data exposure depends in part not just on how long someone takes to string enough qubits together to make Shor's algorithm work, but on the longevity of that data. To truly understand how susceptible they are to HNDL, organizations must therefore have a record of their long-lived data inventory. The NCSC's discovery phase already calls for a record of the data organizations hold, including its expected lifetime and its value to an adversary. Technology’s Barely the Half of It While PQC is a very technical pursuit, it's also a process-centric one. Multiple encryption algorithms will have to pass muster against different quantum algorithms, but the likes of NIST are already well ahead of the curve there. The real problems are always organizational rather than technical. No amount of technical wizardry will help to protect your data unless you know which assets need migrating, who supplies them, and who owns them in your organization. This is squarely an information security management system challenge. The bottleneck here is visibility rather than algorithm choice. According to an Entrust/Ponemon 2026 global survey, only 43% of organizations report full or complete visibility of the cryptographic estate. That same survey found only 26% with a fully implemented crypto agility strategy. Another 31% had partially implemented it, the report found.  The White House has also wagged its finger at industry, calling approaches to discovery and management of cryptography "often insufficient". Your Cryptographic Future is Buried in Your Suppliers' Software Another complicating factor as companies grapple with the quantum cryptography challenge is that much of the cryptography is embedded in vendor products. The NCSC points out that customers' plans will evolve in step with their suppliers' roadmaps. In the US, the Treasury Department has given this issue its own "third party and vendor readiness" work stream. Given the risks involved, it makes sense to quiz suppliers about their intentions here. The IO State of Information Security Report 2025 found that 61% of respondents had a supplier-caused incident in the prior year.  While today such incidents often come down to software bugs or human error, we don't want inadequate PQC compounding the problem, so vendors should be able to provide concrete PQC readiness dates to help customers plan testing and procurement. Why PQC Readiness Belongs Inside an ISO 27001 ISMS The NCSC points out that most migration work to PQC is already good cybersecurity practice, pointing to activities including asset management, building a clear view into systems and services, and being intentional about how you manage your supply chains. These are all practices that ISO 27001 helps organizations to meet. A statement from the G7 Cyber Expert Group on coordinated transitions to PQC in the financial sector also points to ISO 27001 as a pivotal standard. ISO 27001 has everything that you'd want to support your crypto-agility initiative with. Organizations wanting to get ahead of the PQC challenge should consider ownership first by appointing a named senior sponsor. Both the NCSC and the US Executive Order advise this. ISO 27001 clause 5.3 also advises assigning information roles and responsibilities. Inventory and classification are also key tenets of ISO 27001. And organizations should consider extending A.5.9  and A.5.12 to cryptographic dependencies and data lifetime. Supplier controls A.5.19-24 also carry vendor roadmap requests into agreements and reviews.  Use these as your guidance for asking for readiness dates and monitoring supplier migration plans. All of these are relevant, but ISO 27001 also has a specific home for policies around the use of cryptography: A.8.24. There's no shortage of best-practice information for leveling up your cryptography game, and other than yesterday, there's no better time to start implementing it than now. Quantum science deals with things that are very, very small, but it's amazing how big and important small things get as you approach them. Expand Your Knowledge Blog: Moving From ‘Keep Them Out’ to ‘Keep the Business Running’ Podcast: Phishing for Trouble S2 Special Edition: Beyond the Headlines: Cyber Resilience, Supply Chains and the Cost of Disruption (Part 2) Blog: AI Doesn’t Need to End Humanity to Demand Better Governance
ISO 27001

Patch Better, Not Faster: The ICO’s ACRO Reprimand and the Vulnerability Management Challenge

The ACRO case has demonstrated the role of ownership and accountability in patch management. How should CISOs and compliance leaders respond? In August, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) reprimanded ACRO Criminal Records Office (ACRO) after a run of attacks between July 2021 and June 2023 led to the exposure of 10,000 people’s sensitive details. While ACRO escaped a fine, the ICO highlighted “basic cyber security failings”, including leaving a critical system unpatched for nearly four years because the organisation didn’t know who was responsible for updating it. This allowed the hackers to gain unauthorised access to the national policing unit’s website and content management system. ACRO “did not ensure clear responsibility for identifying and monitoring critical CMS security updates, failed to maintain an effective patch management process, and did not adequately investigate security alerts that could have identified the hacker’s activity earlier”, according to the ICO. Threat Debt The ACRO case shows the risk of known weaknesses remaining unresolved, resulting in mounting “threat debt”, according to Andrew Woodford, CTO at Titania. “There was no plan in place to patch the website’s content management system, and nobody was monitoring it,” he points out. Yet ACRO is not the only organisation slow to patch its systems. According to the 2026 Verizon Data Breach Investigations report, the median time to fully patch has risen to 43 days — up from 32 the previous year. Organisations fully remediated just 26% of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA's) known-exploited vulnerabilities, down from 38% the year before. Somewhere in your estate there is a vulnerability “probably older than your CISO's tenure”, says Ivan Milenkovic, vice president risk technology at Qualys. “Several people have probably seen it, and each had a good reason to leave it.” He describes how easily a fix can stall because it sits between two teams or suppliers. “Each assumes the other has it in hand,” says Milenkovic. Alternatively, the system owner might be nervous about downtime, and no one is prepared to overrule them to ensure the patch is deployed. “Sometimes, the asset isn't in the inventory, so it never appears in a scan at all,” suggests Milenkovic. “Or you might find the server runs a legacy application whose author left years ago, and nobody wants to be the person who breaks the application now.” Mounting Patches While these issues can see patches delayed, remediation is even more crucial at a time when security vulnerabilities are mounting, at least partly due to increasing use of AI in bug hunting. Titania’s Woodford acknowledges “a massive increase” in the number of published vulnerabilities, but he says this “doesn't necessarily mean more risk”. “Exploitability is a property of the deployed system, not the source code, so a high severity score doesn’t necessarily mean high risk in your environment,” Woodford explains. In order to figure out what to tackle first, he advises asking a simple question: “What can get where? A critical flaw on an isolated system may matter less than a medium one on a router with a path to sensitive data.” Vulnerabilities should be ranked using three questions, says Milenkovic: “Is the issue being exploited in the wild? Can an attacker reach it? What does the business lose if that asset does get attacked?” In ACRO’s case, answering these questions would have shown how important the fixes were. Milenkovic points out that ACRO's portal was running a version with multiple known, publicly documented vulnerabilities. “The server faced the public internet. The data exposed was valuable, including National Insurance numbers, passport and driving licence details, bank information, biometric data, and criminal offence information.” Delaying a Patch The general advice is to patch as quickly as possible, but there are sometimes legitimate reasons to delay remediation. This could happen in environments where uptime and stability are critical, says Kelvin Lim, head of security engineering APAC at Black Duck. “If remediation needs to be delayed, organisations should implement compensating controls, increase monitoring, and formally track the risk.” If a vulnerability cannot be fixed, someone needs to formally own that decision, Lim tells IO. “Documenting accepted risk creates accountability, captures the business rationale, and ensures the decision is reviewed over time. If it is not documented, it will be difficult to demonstrate that the risk was ever evaluated in the first place.” In addition, it’s important that senior leaders are provided visibility of overdue critical vulnerabilities. Leaders need to see what’s overdue, who owns it and why it’s stuck, because “only they can make the trade-offs that unblock it”, according to Titania’s Woodford. Boards should be able to see a list that shows critical vulnerabilities past their deadline on internet-facing or high-value systems, each with its age, its owner, and the reason it's still open, adds Qualys’ Milenkovic. At the same time, the CISO should not be accepting business risk on behalf of the business, says Milenkovic. “The signature belongs to the person whose budget, customers or licence absorbs the loss if it goes wrong.” Monitoring and Patching According to the ICO, ACRO’s failings centred around monitoring and patching. The two areas should not operate in separate silos, says Black Duck’s Lim. “Monitoring helps identify vulnerabilities, detect exploitation attempts, validate remediation efforts, and provide coverage when a fix cannot be applied immediately. Together they form a continuous cycle of identifying, reducing, and managing risk.” ISO 27001:2022 Annex A Control 8.8 focuses on managing technical vulnerabilities by identifying risks, maintaining an asset inventory, assessing threats, and implementing mitigation measures to protect an organisation's infrastructure. It emphasises proactive vulnerability management to strengthen information security. Good vulnerability management is not about “patching everything immediately”, says Lim. He advocates clear ownership, risk-based prioritisation, defined remediation timelines, executive visibility, continuous monitoring, and disciplined exception management. “Mature organisations focus on reducing business risk, not closing the most tickets.” A mature vulnerability programme produces “no heroics and very few surprises”, according to Qualys’ Milenkovic. “The board reports are short, and engineers aren't pulling all-nighters on emergency patches, because the dangerous work was scheduled weeks ago. When a regulator asks a question, the answer comes from a system in minutes.” In its reprimand to ACRO, the ICO said having the right policies, responsibilities and oversight arrangements in place is just as important as having the right technology. With this in mind, CISOs and compliance leaders should treat vulnerability management as a “governance issue as much as a technical one”, says Lim. “Their role is to create accountability, ensure prioritisation aligns with business risk, provide executive visibility, and make sure risk decisions are documented and reviewed.” Expand Your Knowledge Blog: AI Is Supercharging Vulnerability Exploitation: What Happens Next? Podcast: Phishing for Trouble S2 E8: What the Regulators Want  Guide: The State of Information Security Report 2025
ISO 27001

The Cyber Resilience Act Just Got Real: It’s Time to Build Structured Governance

It’s been a long time in the making, but the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) is finally here. And it couldn’t have come a moment sooner. As AI empowers threat actors to probe for new weaknesses in digital products, and exploit recently published flaws at ever greater speed, there’s an urgent need for vendors to improve cyber-risk management. Now they have a regulatory mandate to force their hand. But the businesses best able to adapt to the new rules, and use compliance as a driver of better operational security, will be those that take a continuous approach to compliance. They will also focus on putting in place structured, repeatable governance processes before something bad happens, not once they are plunged into the chaos of incident response. What Happens Now? The CRA is a worthwhile effort to improve the security and reliability of connected technology and make it easier for buyers to find high-quality products via a kite mark scheme. It applies to all manufacturers of hardware and software products with a digital element (PDEs) which sell into the EU, plus importers and distributors. Penalties of up to €15m (£12.9m) or 2.5% of annual turnover mean non-compliance is not an option. The new reporting rules, effective from September 11, 2026, demand that in-scope entities: Identify and document actively exploited vulnerabilities in PDEs (and any relevant backend/cloud services) Identify any severe incidents that have an impact on the security of a PDE Notify government authorities, customers, and suppliers/partners of these vulnerabilities or severe incidents within 24 hours of becoming aware (initial early warning) Issue a main notification within 72 hours Produce a final report 14 days after a patch or mitigating measure has been applied By 11 December 2027, in-scope organisations will also be expected to remediate any vulnerabilities (taking into account the risks they pose) “without delay”. The rules come as regulators on both sides of the Atlantic respond to growing concerns about AI-powered vulnerability research and exploit development. The window of opportunity that network defenders have to apply vendor updates in, before systems are exploited, has collapsed. At the same time, AI is finding an order of magnitude more flaws in software. Microsoft’s September Patch Tuesday posted a record 974 CVEs. In the US back in June, CISA issued Binding Operational Directive 26-04: Prioritizing Security Updates Based on Risk. It requires federal agencies to improve prioritization of updates according to the risk they pose and accelerate patching timelines for those deemed high risk. That will depend on technical impact, whether they’ve been exploited, and whether systems are internet reachable, among other things. Getting Your House in Order To ensure they meet the CRA’s requirements, organisations will have to act now, according to Veeam Software EMEA field CISO, Andre Troskie. “They need to have the correct telemetry, component visibility, and crucially, a decision process that can move in hours, not days,” he tells IO (formerly ISMS.online). “That means establishing clear ownership and escalation routes for assessing whether an issue is reportable, establishing when they became aware of it, understanding its impact, and producing the evidence needed as part of the notification process.” Codific CEO and OWASP SAMM contributor, Aram Hovsepyan, argues that while most large vendors should find CRA compliance a relatively easy lift, less mature companies may come up short. A structured and repeatable risk management approach will be key to meeting these new reporting obligations, and other activities mentioned in the CRA, he tells IO. “I strongly believe that eventually this is going to be the bottom line. To get repeatable reporting in place you will have to move towards a more proactive approach to security assurance as opposed to the reactive way we were doing things for quite a while,” Hovsepyan continues. “With the reporting obligations now in force, organisations will get the opportunity to set up a more proactive approach that will help them immensely in the long run.” Vincent Lomba, chief product security officer at Alcatel-Lucent, argues that organisations have no time to waste. “Considering how severe the financial penalty is under the CRA, there has never been a more significant time to ensure organisations have structured, repeatable governance processes in place before an incident happens,” he tells IO. “Because adapting long-standing organisational processes takes years, not weeks, leaders cannot afford to wait for a crisis to test their readiness. True cyber resilience demands proactive, structured governance that embeds security into the company’s daily DNA long before a crisis could appear.” The direction of travel must be continuous oversight of the sort advocated by ISO 27001 and other best practice standards, Lomba continues. “Continuous assurance is essential to maintain compliance across rapidly changing software,” he argues. “The rise of AI has triggered a 50-fold increase in vulnerabilities being exploited by bad actors. Because CRA obligations mandate ‘security by design’ across the entire product lifecycle static, periodic compliance audits are no longer fit for purpose. Tight deadlines maintain this accountability.” Reaping the Rewards Such an approach will boost remediation efforts and reduce compliance risk. But it also offers business benefits beyond the avoidance of CRA fines. “Establishing structured reporting enables organisations to prioritise cybersecurity as a formal financial business case based on risk management which can then be presented to the board to highlight its importance,” concludes Lomba. “It also helps organisations gain a competitive edge in European markets; to win customer deals and avoid the friction facing non-compliant vendors.” In this way, compliance evolves from its traditional role as a business blocker to one of growth enabler. And the cybersecurity and GRC teams finally emerge as strategic functions dedicated to unlocking new opportunities. Expand Your Knowledge Blog: Everything You Need To Know About the Cyber Resilience Act Podcast: Phishing for Trouble S2 E8: What The Regulators Want Blog: Beyond The Breach: Why The Response Is Now The Story
ISO 27001

Beyond The Breach: Why The Response Is Now The Story

As breaches become part of everyday business, how has the conversation evolved and what do recent incidents reveal about good — and poor — incident response? Even as little as five years ago, a company that suffered a breach would come under intense scrutiny, including months of review into how and why the attack had hit — especially if sensitive data was exposed. While this level of scrutiny still happens, it’s now widely accepted that cyber-attacks will take place, especially targeting high-profile firms. This was all too clear recently when the likes of Coca-Cola, Ernst & Young, Craneware and Abbott all admitted cyber incidents within a few months of each other. Beyond the breach itself, these disclosures across multiple industries over a short period show a bigger trend. As cyber incidents become more difficult to prevent, customers, regulators and partners are placing greater scrutiny on how organisations respond, recover and communicate when something goes wrong. How has the conversation evolved and what do recent breaches reveal about good — and poor — incident response? Changing Expectations Expectations around cyber incidents have changed. A decade ago, organisations were largely judged on whether they suffered a breach at all. Today, stakeholders understand that “no organisation is immune”, says Doug Jewitt, security consultant at Infinity Group. He describes how the focus has shifted towards how quickly an organisation identifies an incident, how transparently it responds, and how effectively it recovers. “There is a clear expectation that organisations of all sizes have appropriately sized technical controls in place." The recent disclosures involving Coca-Cola, Ernst & Young, Craneware and Abbott show that “timely, substantive communication” can moderate stakeholder reaction, says Tracey Hannan-Jones information security consulting director at UBDS Group. “Silence, delay, or vague statements invite speculation and often cause reputational damage disproportionate to the technical incident. An organisation unable to explain what happened, what it is doing, and what remains unknown signals that it was unprepared.” The difference between a good and poor response centres around “visibility and context”, says Jeremy Leasher, security architect at Binalyze. He believes the recent attack on healthcare organisation Stryker is a clear example of where things can go wrong. “The initial statement insinuated there was no ransomware or malware, and that the incident was contained,” Leasher tells IO. Technically this was accurate, but when it emerged the attack came through a trusted admin tool rather than malware it didn’t matter, says Leasher. “Strategically, it looked like Stryker didn’t understand the threat.” Regulator Roles Meanwhile, regulators now play a key part in shaping incident response, including expectations around reporting and disclosure. The UK general update to data reprotection regulation (GDPR) requires reporting personal data breaches within 72 hours, while the Financial Conduct Authority, EU Network and Information Systems Directive 2 regimes, and the US Securities and Exchange Commission impose additional notification duties. “Regulators increasingly assess not merely whether notification occurred, but its speed, quality, accuracy, and follow-up,” says UBDS Group’s Hannan-Jones. One of the biggest practical consequences is timing, says David Dumont, partner at Hunton. He points out that many reporting obligations have very short deadlines. “So, organisations may have to devote substantial time and resources to assessing notification requirements and preparing regulator forms almost immediately after becoming aware of an incident, often while the facts are still developing.” At the same time, the regulator itself has an increasingly important role to play, says Freeths’ data expert Paul Wiggins. He points out that under the Data Use and Access Act, the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has stronger enforcement powers. “It is anticipated that the ICO will act as a regulatory gatekeeper, with the hope that this will provide resolution for low value claims,” he tells IO. Speed, Transparency and Accuracy While attacks continue to hit firms, many experts believe businesses are becoming better at handling cyber incidents. Dray Agha, senior manager, security operations centre, EMEA at Huntress says things are improving largely because the historical stigma of a breach is fading. “Businesses are recognising that incidents are a 'when, not if' reality, allowing them to shift their energy away from hiding the problem and toward minimising the downtime.” It’s now important that organisations strike the balance between speed, transparency and accuracy during an incident. Responding well to a breach requires several key steps. Having the right policies and team in place to “spring into action when the time comes” is essential, says Freeths’ Wiggins. He highlights the importance of a team including external advisers — such as lawyers, PR agents and cyber insurers — which he believes is “fundamental” in shaping the strategy and response to an incident. “Additionally, a willingness to help reassure and support affected data subjects, as well as engaging with supply chain partners who feel the knock-on effects of the incident.” The organisations that respond best to a breach have done the planning in advance, says Binalyze’s Leasher. At the core, he thinks they should be able to answer the three basic questions quickly: “Does the attacker still have access? How did they get in? What did they take?” Communication and transparency are essential and can be “the difference between a cyber incident becoming a business challenge or a reputational crisis”, points out Infinity Group’s Jewitt. “Customers, partners and regulators understand that investigations take time, but they expect honesty, timely updates and clear explanations of what is known, what is still being investigated and what actions are being taken." The key is to “communicate what you know, acknowledge what you don't know and commit to regular updates”, says Jewitt. “Waiting for perfect information can delay critical decisions, but rushing to conclusions can damage trust.” Strong Governance Strong governance underpins effective incident response. This means ensuring clear ownership, established processes and informed decision-making before a crisis occurs. Strong governance ensures that decisions can be made quickly and confidently during a crisis, says Jewitt. “Clear ownership, established escalation paths, and well-understood responsibilities remove uncertainty when time matters most. Organisations that invest in governance before an incident are typically better equipped to manage regulatory requirements, stakeholder communications and recovery efforts when one occurs." Stellar incident response cannot be improvised, says UBDS Digital’s’ Hannan-Jones. “Detection matters, but rapid containment depends on clear authority and rehearsed coordination. Technical, legal, communications, and executive teams must work together from the outset. Cyber incidents affecting data, intellectual property, or operations are business events, not simply IT problems. Visible board-level ownership is essential.” ISO 27001 can strengthen readiness when treated as an operational framework, but certification alone is insufficient, says Hannan-Jones. “Untested plans, poorly understood responsibilities, and IT-only exercises create false confidence.” She says effective resilience rests on four practised capabilities: “Detect, contain, respond and recover.” Expand Your Knowledge Blog: Why Cyber Resilience Remains a Long Way Off for Many UK Businesses Podcast: Boardroom to Breakroom- Building a Culture of Compliance Blog: How Can Security Teams Prepare for a Post-Mythos Future?
ISO 27001

What The Microsoft 365 Copilot “SearchLeak” Issue Says About AI Era Risk

The Copilot SearchLeak vulnerability chain shows how any AI assistant can evolve from a productivity feature into a new path into data that inherits the user's reach. What lessons can security and compliance leaders learn? In June, researchers at Varonis Threat Labs unveiled a critical vulnerability chain in Microsoft 365 Copilot Enterprise dubbed “SearchLeak”. Tracked as CVE-2026-42824, attackers could use the flaw to steal sensitive data — including emails, multifactor authentication (MFA) codes, and indexed files — with a single click. SearchLeak was swiftly fixed by Microsoft before being exploited in any real-life attacks. Yet the Copilot issue has demonstrated how any AI assistant can evolve from a productivity feature into a new path into data that inherits the user's reach. What lessons can security and compliance leaders learn? One Click, No Malware The SearchLeak flaw shows that any connected AI assistant is only as contained as the permissions of the person running it. When it's tricked, it can reach and leak anything a user can. SearchLeak combines a relatively new class of AI-specific vulnerability known as parameter-to-prompt injection with two classic web security bugs: An HTML injection race condition flaw and a server-side request forgery issue. “Individually, each vulnerability might seem manageable,” security researcher Dolev Taler wrote in a blog. “Chained together, they give an attacker the ability to silently extract emails, security codes, and other sensitive content from a victim's mailbox, calendar, SharePoint, and OneDrive — all from one click of an unsuspicious link.” Experts say the SearchLeak issue was concerning due to its simplicity. “One click, no malware, no stolen credentials,” comments Tim Freestone, chief strategy officer, Kiteworks. “Copilot read whatever sat in that URL as an instruction, found the emails or MFA codes, and sent them out through an image tag rendered to Bing before the response had even finished loading.” Data Governance Risks SearchLeak highlights the data governance risks posed by AI. Many organisations still lack a comprehensive understanding of who can access sensitive information, how broadly that information is shared, or how permissions combine across different business systems. The issue was not even about over-broad permissions: Copilot only accessed what the user already had access to, says Tristan Shortland, CTO at Infinity Group. “The issue is how that access can be triggered and automated. Even well-scoped permissions can be exploited if the control layers around AI are weak.” AI makes fragmented permissions “behave like a single permission model”, Jared Atkinson, chief technology officer at SpecterOps tells IO. “A user may have seemingly harmless access in Outlook, Teams, SharePoint, GitHub, Salesforce, ServiceNow and cloud platforms individually. Once an AI assistant can reason across all of them; the combination could reveal substantially more than any one application on its own.” As organisations adopt AI, data governance then becomes less about where information is stored, and more about understanding the identities and permission relationships that allow it to be combined, says Atkinson AI eliminates the "security by obscurity" that many organisations accidentally rely on, says Dray Agha, senior manager of security operations at Huntress. “Without strict data governance, AI tools make it trivially easy for employees — or compromised accounts — to instantly find and summarise sensitive information previously hidden in the sheer noise and volume of corporate networks.” Growing Attack Surface As agents span more apps, the attack surface grows due to increasing numbers of data sources, actions and complex chains. With this in mind, Infinity Group’s Shortland predicts that in the future, there will be fewer single “big” vulnerabilities and “more multi-step exploits across AI, identity and APIs”. Today's AI assistants retrieve information. The next generation of AI agents will “execute work across multiple business applications, coordinating actions in email, source code repositories, cloud platforms, ticketing systems, CRM platforms, identity providers, and other enterprise services”, says SpecterOps’ Atkinson. This autonomy will lead to broader use of delegated authority, he says. “Agents will receive delegated credentials, service identities, or application-specific permissions that allow them to perform actions the user could not perform directly. This will create new opportunities for unintended data exposure, privilege escalation or abuse, if delegated permissions are not carefully governed.” Regain Control As AI agents continue to pose risks to businesses, security and compliance leaders can take some simple steps to take back control and limit the blast radius if similar issues to SearchLeak arise. It’s important to note that simply blocking access won’t work. “Prohibition just drives usage to non-corporate accounts where you have even less visibility,” says Kiteworks’ Freestone. Rather than pulling back on AI, Infinity Group’s Shortland advises treating the technology “like a high-privilege abstraction layer”. “Practically, that means strict scoping of what Copilot can index and retrieve: Not just user permissions, but AI retrieval scope.” Shortland also advises segmentation of sensitive data sources. “Don’t assume everything needs to be discoverable via Graph.” Meanwhile, firms can monitor for unusual retrieval patterns and reduce implicit trust in internal domains, he advises. “SearchLeak worked because the link looked legitimate. In short: Assume AI will be tricked at some point and design around that.” AI Access Governance As the SearchLeak issue shows, you can't make an AI assistant un-trickable, so the most important control is limiting what it can reach. Visibility is a key step. Security leaders should inventory where AI agents are deployed, understand which identities they operate as, and identify any delegated credentials or service identities they receive, says SpecterOps’ Atkinson. “Human users, service accounts, application identities and AI agents should all be evaluated as part of the same identity ecosystem.” While ISO 27001 wasn’t written for AI, its controls “map directly onto the SearchLeak attack chain”, according to Kiteworks’ Freestone. For example, Annex A.9 access control would have scoped what Copilot could reach. “A.12.4 logging and monitoring would have made the exfiltration attempt visible in real time,” he points out. “And A.8.2 information classification would have kept regulated content from crossing a governed boundary.” The standard provides the controls but lacks the framework for deciding what AI systems are allowed to do in the first place, he explains. That’s where ISO 42001, the international standard for AI management systems, comes in. This requires impact assessments before deployment, human oversight mechanisms, and explicit treatment of AI-specific risks including prompt manipulation and unintended model behaviour. “This is the exact threat class SearchLeak represents,” says Freestone. “ISO 27001 covers the security controls and the audit evidence. ISO 42001 covers the governance decisions that sit upstream of those controls. Regulators are starting to expect both.” Expand Your Knowledge Guide: Securing the AI Attack Surface Blog: Anthropic's Suspension is a Wake-Up Call for AI Supplier Risk Blog: Cyber-Risk Management is Fragmented, Here's How to Fix It
ISO 27001

Data Governance in Healthcare in the Age of Ransomware

As the risk of being hit grows, how well an organisation governs its data determines the blast radius of an attack and how quickly care can continue. How can this be done? Ransomware attacks are continuing to hit the healthcare sector, with potentially devastating consequences that can go on for months after the incident. In February 2026, University of Mississippi Medical Center was forced to close all clinics after suffering a ransomware attack. In June 2024, the NHS was left in disarray after a ransomware attack on pathology services provider Synnovis, resulting on one of its most operationally disruptive cyber incidents in recent memory. In the attack attributed to the Qilin ransomware group, patient data was published on the dark web in a textbook case of double extortion. In February the same year, Change Healthcare — a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group responsible for processing a substantial proportion of US healthcare claims — suffered an attack attributed to ALPHV/BlackCat. It soon emerged that approximately 100 million individuals' data had been compromised, making it the largest healthcare breach in US history. Healthcare consistently ranks among the most targeted sectors globally for ransomware attacks, says Tracey Hannan-Jones, consulting director in information security, UBDS Digital. The reasons are “structural”, and they are “getting worse”, she says. As the risk of being hit grows, how well an organisation governs its data determines the blast radius of an attack, and how quickly care can continue. How can this be done? Evolving Ransomware Ransomware attacks are becoming more sophisticated, hitting a healthcare sector already struggling amid a lack of budget. The risk is compounded by the fact that the sector holds extremely sensitive data, and downtime is not an option. Attack techniques have shifted beyond traditional encryption, with threat actors adopting “encryption-less extortion” tactics that focus exclusively on data exfiltration and threatening to leak or sell stolen sensitive information, Lorri Janssen-Anessi, VP of global risk operations at BlueVoyant tells IO. “These often form part of double and triple extortion strategies.” AI is further accelerating this shift, enabling attackers to “increase the speed, scale, and sophistication of attacks”, she warns. As techniques evolve beyond encryption, backups are no longer enough to protect the sector. Jake Moore, global cybersecurity advisor at ESET describes a “clear shift” from data encryption to double extortion. Things have changed dramatically since the WannaCry attack in 2017, which affected up to a third of England’s NHS trusts and hundreds of GP Practices, Moore says. “At no point did the ransomware operators threaten to release the data. But today, ransomware groups like Clop and Qilin use the threat of leaking compromised healthcare data to place added pressure on their victims.” Human and Operational Impact Attacks on healthcare are different to other industries because they have a direct human impact. For years, healthcare treated ransomware as a data protection problem: Back it up, restore it, move on. With double and triple extortion, this is no longer the case, experts say. “When systems go down, clinicians lose access to records, treatment is delayed, and staff revert to manual processes that slow care and introduce risk,” Dr Darren Williams, founder and CEO, BlackFog tells IO. “Cyber resilience has become inseparable from patient safety and continuity of care." The Synnovis incident, which left patients unable to have blood tests for months, is a prime example of how things can quickly go drastically wrong. While it was not a direct event, the death of a patient at King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has been linked to the issues getting a blood test at the time. A spokesperson for the trust said a number of contributing factors led to the patient's death including “a long wait for a blood test result”. And in some cases, the sensitivity of the data accessed is exceptionally high. Take the example of New York City Health and Hospitals, the largest public healthcare system in the US, which disclosed in May that hackers stole personal data, medical records and biometric information including fingerprints, in a breach affecting at least 1.8 million people. “Unfortunately, we see plenty of high-profile attacks that impact patient care, shutting down booking systems, ambulance routing systems, internal communications and delaying test results,” says Moore. Poor Data Governance The impact of poor data governance is made worse by the fact that medical records cannot simply be reissued. At the same time, sprawl is a major issue, Dr Williams says. “Patient data lives across electronic health records, imaging systems, aging legacy platforms, connected devices, and a long tail of third-party vendors. When an organisation doesn't know precisely where its sensitive data sits, it can't protect it, and just as importantly, after an attack it can't say with confidence what was taken. That uncertainty is what turns a contained incident into a full breach notification, regulatory exposure and a loss of patient trust.” Taking the risks into account, experts believe data governance must now evolve from being a compliance chore to form the backbone of resilience. Dray Agha, senior manager of security operations at Huntress suggests a mindset shift from "box-ticking" to “operational necessity”. “This means actively minimising data footprints, enforcing strict access controls, and understanding data flows, ensuring that even when a breach occurs, critical systems remain insulated and recoverable.” Frameworks such as ISO 27001 help provide organisations a structured way to build and evidence data governance before an attack, rather than afterwards when it’s too late. Defining what “good” data governance means in practice, ISO 27001 demands rigorous asset management, continuous risk assessment, and precise information classification. This ensures that organisations apply security controls “directly proportionate to the value and sensitivity of the data they hold”, says Agha. Meanwhile, ISO 22301 for Business Continuity Management directly addresses operational resilience, according to UBDS Digital’s Hannan-Jones. Alongside data governance, regulation plays a central role in shaping how the healthcare sector manages ransomware risk. The US Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the UK Cyber Security and Resilience Bill and UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR, as well as the EU Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA ) and the Network and Information Systems 2 directive (NIS2) are imposing stricter requirements, with security leaders required to enhance third-party risk management, maintain vendor oversight, and meet strict incident reporting rules. Boosting Data Governance And Resilience There’s no doubt ransomware will continue to hit organisations, and the healthcare sector remains a significant target. This makes it integral that the sector overhauls the way it governs data, knowing what it holds, where the information lives, and how it's classified, minimised, access-controlled, and recoverable. Addressing modern ransomware risks in healthcare requires a shift from “reactive defence” to “organisation-wide resilience”, according to BlueVoyant’s Janssen-Anessi. “This means embedding cybersecurity into core sector decision-making, ensuring that cyber resilience is built into every area of an organisation’s operations — not just the IT or security teams.” It also means shifting from typical, siloed security models to “a fundamentally different approach that can proactively tackle cross-domain ransomware attacks”, says Janssen-Anessi. “Traditional security models are insufficient because they were largely designed and built to deal with isolated incidents and perimeter-based defence strategy rather than persistent, evolving threat activity,” she points out. At least once a year, healthcare security and compliance leaders should be carrying out regular multi-agency cybersecurity drills and red teaming exercises, advises ESET’s Moore. “This means working with other critical services such as the fire and police service, putting systems under pressure and identifying security gaps in their data governance processes before ransomware operators can do the same.” What does ISO 27001 say? Know what information you hold Information asset inventory and classification (A.5.9, A.5.12, A.5.13) detail how you can't protect, recover, or accurately report on data you haven't mapped. Hold less data Address retention and secure deletion/minimisation (A.8.10), which directly shrinks what attackers can steal. Control who reaches it Employ least privilege and access restriction (A.5.15, A.8.3), so a single compromise doesn't expose everything. Be able to recover Backup and ICT readiness ensure resilience help with continuity (A.8.13, A.5.29, A.5.30), including tested restoration, not just backups that exist on paper. Expand Your Knowledge Blog: Healthcare AI is Moving Fast, But Data Governance is Struggling to Keep Up Blog: How Ransomware Became a Business Resilience Problem Guide: The State of Information Security Report 2025
ISO 27001

Anthropic’s Suspension Is a Wake-Up Call for AI Supplier Risk

If you build critical business processes around a single AI service, what happens when that service disappears overnight? Earlier this year, organisations using Anthropic's Claude Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models were forced to answer exactly that question. The models, released in early June 2026, were suspended just days after launch following an order from the US government. Anthropic said it had to "abruptly disable Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all our customers to ensure compliance" with a directive believed to relate to bypassing, or "jailbreaking", Fable 5. The model was reportedly capable of detecting vulnerabilities in cyber systems and was suspended due to concerns that it could be exploited. Although it had only been made available to vetted organisations, the US government issued an export control directive suspending access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for any foreign national. In a statement, Anthropic said the directive did not provide specific details of the government's national security concerns. It added that, having reviewed a demonstration of the technique used to identify a small number of previously known, minor vulnerabilities, those vulnerabilities appeared relatively simple. Anthropic further stated that, in the weeks leading up to the launch of Fable, it had worked with the US government, multiple third-party organisations and internal teams to red-team the model's safeguards for thousands of hours. "These tests showed that Fable's safeguards are substantially more effective than those of any previously deployed model." On 1 July, restrictions on Fable 5 and Mythos 5 were lifted after the Commerce Department said Anthropic had agreed to proactively detect and address security risks associated with the models, collaborate on future AI releases, and alert the government to malicious activity. Part of the Enterprise The suspension may have been temporary, but it exposed a much broader question: what happens when an AI service that has become embedded in business operations is suddenly unavailable? Some organisations may have been early adopters of Anthropic's latest models, but that is far from unusual. Businesses are increasingly quick to adopt new AI capabilities where they offer a competitive or operational advantage. The real issue is not how new a service is, but how dependent an organisation has become on it. If AI services have become business-critical, their sudden withdrawal could create significant operational disruption. The Anthropic incident therefore raises an important question: should AI tools now be treated as critical suppliers? Graham Pottie, an information security manager and vCISO with ClubCISO, says the criticality of AI depends entirely on how it is being used. If it's simply being used to tidy up an email, then it is not a critical application. "But if you're using it to gather information on clients and what they're doing to improve your pitch, or to automate business processes," he says, "then it becomes a critical service." He also points out that organisations need to understand the dependencies hidden within their suppliers. "When you do your standard supplier risk management, there may be AI embedded within those products that they're reliant on. If it disappears and it's a key supplier with AI built in, it can harm your business." Pottie adds that if you have built tools or agentic applications on top of a particular large language model (LLM), they may not work on another platform. There is also the issue of data security. "What happens to your data? Is it still within your control, or have you lost ownership?" Into the Risk Register If AI has become essential to your operations, it should be managed like any other critical supplier, with the associated risks formally captured in your risk register. While this incident involved Anthropic, the same scenario could affect any AI provider. The key lesson is understanding dependency risk. Organisations need to know not only where AI is used directly, but also where it is embedded within third-party services that support critical business processes. Pottie says that if an AI platform is critical to your business, and you've replaced 90% of your helpdesk staff with AI, then you have a significant operational risk that should be managed accordingly. That assessment should also form part of any compliance programme. If you're working towards ISO 27001 certification, reliance on external AI services should be reflected within your information security risk register. Several ISO 27001:2022 controls are particularly relevant in this scenario. The supplier relationship controls (A.5.19–A.5.22) require organisations to understand the risks associated with external products and services, making AI providers a natural consideration where they support business-critical processes. Likewise, A.5.23, covering the use and exit of cloud services, reinforces the need to consider how AI-dependent services could be replaced or migrated if access were suddenly withdrawn. Business continuity is equally important. Controls A.5.29 and A.5.30 require organisations to prepare for technology disruptions by identifying critical services, maintaining response plans and regularly testing them. While few organisations would have expected a newly launched AI model to be suspended within days of release, the Anthropic example demonstrates why planning for the unexpected is an essential part of resilient AI adoption. Taken together, these controls encourage organisations to identify where AI supports critical business processes, assess supplier and geopolitical risks, and maintain documented contingency and exit plans should access to a service be restricted or withdrawn. They also help reduce dependence on a single AI provider by encouraging organisations to understand their options before disruption occurs. Pottie says AI can also play a role in incident preparedness, but organisations should never neglect the basics. As he puts it: "Keep a pen and paper close by." The Bigger Picture Although Anthropic disputed the US government's concerns and characterised the issue as a narrow, non-universal jailbreak, the episode demonstrated how quickly access to a critical AI service can change. OpenAI has also faced increased scrutiny from the US government, with version 5.6 of its GPT model reportedly being approved on a customer-by-customer basis. As AI becomes embedded in critical business processes, organisations need to treat AI providers as they would any other strategic supplier. That means understanding dependencies, maintaining contingency plans and ensuring supplier risk is reflected within the information security risk register. ISO 27001 already provides much of the framework required—the challenge is making sure AI is included within it. Expand Your Knowledge Blog: How Can Security Teams Prepare for a Post-Mythos Future? Blog: The Biggest AI Governance Challenges in 2026 Webinar: ISO 27001 & ISO 27701 in Practice: Inside Our Surveillance Audit
ISO 27001

The Next Major Telecom Outage May Not Start With the Telecom Provider

With one supplier weakness able to trigger widespread operational disruption, how can firms boost resilience and manage risk? In January, US telecoms giant Verizon suffered a massive outage impacting millions of users. Described by internet monitoring company Cisco ThousandEyes as one of the most significant connectivity interruptions in recent history, the incident was widespread, severe and ongoing, leaving some mobile users’ phones stuck in SOS mode. Verizon soon confirmed that the outage was not the result of a cyberattack, instead blaming the incident on a “software issue”. This is set to be a growing problem as telecoms networks become increasingly interconnected and virtualised. In Verizon’s case, the impact has been significant, affecting its reputation, and resulting in a fall in share price. The mobile provider soon tried to soften the blow by promising a $20 refund for users. It comes at a time when outages create an impact that cascades through the supply chain. The CrowdStrike outage of 2024 is just one example. Other more recent incidents have stemmed from issues at infrastructure providers such as Amazon Web Services  and Cloudflare. With one supplier weakness able to trigger widespread operational disruption, firms now need to re-examine the way they approach resilience and manage risk. Evolving Risk Technologies such as 5G are changing the game for telecoms firms, with network virtualisation playing a key role. But this means companies are increasingly relying on vast ecosystems of suppliers, cloud services, software vendors and managed infrastructure partners. Telecommunications networks have become “significantly more complex” over the past decade, making outages “a very real risk”, says Mike Hellers, product development manager at London Internet Exchange. “Every additional dependency creates another potential point of failure, meaning outages are increasingly driven by issues beyond the direct control of the telecom provider itself,” says Hellers. Beyond being simply technical failures, outages are now becoming failures of ecosystem governance. Yet ultimately, the customer impact reflects on the provider. “If one critical dependency fails, misconfigures a service, ships a bad update or cannot recover quickly, the customer experiences it as a telecom outage — regardless of whose logo is on the root cause report,” says Mayur Upadhyaya, CEO of APIContext. Third Party Threats The Verizon outage and others like it show how modern telecom resilience is only as strong as the weakest supplier in the chain. Cloud services themselves depend on physical infrastructure, data centres, network routes, and power systems. And while AI and automation are helping operators manage larger, more dynamic software defined networks, they also introduce new challenges. Increased speed is both a blessing and a curse. “Automated systems can make decisions or implement changes at a speed that leaves little time for human intervention, meaning configuration errors or failures can propagate across interconnected environments much faster than they could previously,” says Hellers. AI and automation can make things worse because they “compress the time between cause and consequence”, agrees APIContext’s Upadhyaya. He points out that automation can improve resilience, but it can also “propagate failure faster” when governance, observability and ownership are weak. “The question is not simply whether a provider's own systems are resilient, but whether it can see, test and govern the resilience of the entire chain of services required to deliver connectivity.” Visibility Adding to the issue is the fact that infrastructure providers often lack full visibility across interconnected vendor environments. “Most organizations still lack real-time visibility and clear accountability across their dependencies, and they’re relying on governance models that weren’t designed for this level of complexity,” says Dana Simberkoff, chief risk, privacy and information security officer at AvePoint. Set against this backdrop, APIContext’s Upadhyaya thinks annual supplier reviews are “becoming dangerously out of date”. The main problem is, they were designed for a world where third-party risk changed slowly, he says. This is an issue in the modern age, because telecom infrastructure now changes continuously: “Routing decisions, cloud dependencies, API integrations, automated remediation, AI-assisted operations and vendor-hosted control planes can all shift risk in real time,” points out Upadhyaya. “A supplier that looked acceptable during a yearly review may become a material operational dependency weeks later.” Regulatory Focus At the same time, the industry is seeing growing regulatory focus on operational resilience and supply chain accountability, reflecting the fact that digital infrastructure has become critical national infrastructure, supporting everything from financial services to healthcare. AvePoint’s Simberkoff points out that the Network and Information Systems 2 Directive (NIS2) and the EU Digital and Operational Resilience Act (DORA), both make it clear that organizations are accountable for the resilience of their third-party dependencies. “And both require continuous oversight, stronger supplier accountability and integrated incident response,” she says. Regulations such as these also force a move away from perimeter-based thinking, towards resilience of the entire ecosystem. With this in mind, Giles Adams CEO, VQ Communications believes resilience is “more about structural control”. Communication is “mission-critical”, and infrastructure decisions “matter more than ever”, he tells IO. Reducing Complexity One practical way organizations can strengthen resilience is by reducing unnecessary complexity wherever possible. More direct interconnection between networks, cloud providers and digital services reduces the number of intermediary points where failures can occur and gives operators greater control over end-to-end connectivity, says London Internet Exchange’s Hellers. “It also enables faster communication between the organizations directly involved when issues arise, helping to identify and resolve problems more quickly.” Adams describes how the firm’s customers are increasingly adopting alternative approaches such as multi-site deployments to avoid single points of failure; geographic distribution of conferencing infrastructure; redundant conferencing nodes for failover capability; and hybrid models, combining cloud and private infrastructure. Alongside technical resilience, Hellers believes transparency remains “fundamental”. Strong governance frameworks such as ISO 27001, continuous supplier assurance and open communication “all play an important role in building trust across increasingly interconnected ecosystems”, he says. As telecoms networks become more complex with multiple technologies at play, the risk of outages as a result of a third-party dependency continues to surge. In an age of critical dependences such as these, experts emphasise the importance of the ecosystem working together to manage issues and fix them quickly. Ultimately, resilience is no longer measured solely by how robust a single network is, says Hellers. “It is now about how effectively organizations work together across the wider digital ecosystem to anticipate, withstand and recover from disruption." Expand Your Knowledge Podcast: Phishing for Trouble SO2 E03: Supply Chain Dominoes: Why Their Risk Is Now Your Risk Blog: Cyber-Risk Management Is Fragmented: Here’s How to Fix It Blog: Everything You Need To Know About the Cyber Resilience Act

ISO 27001:2022 Annex A Controls

Organisational Controls

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