What is an Information Security Management System (ISMS)?
ISMS stands for Information Security Management System. When it comes to risk and security, the goal of an ISMS is to minimize an organization's vulnerabilities by proactively taking precautions. By implementing these policies and procedures, you can ensure that your sensitive data remains secure and limit the impact of a security breach.
Most information security management systems deal with the behaviors and processes of company employees as well as data and technology. They can also be targeted toward a specific type of data, such as customer data, or implemented in a more holistic way that becomes part of the company culture.
The most effective technique for ensuring information security is to design, implement, manage, and maintain a comprehensive ISMS. This will give you data protection from risk of compromise.
How will an ISMS benefit my organization?
The benefits of an effective ISMS are listed below:
1. Provides security to all your information
An ISMS can provide peace of mind and protection for all your company's intellectual property, sensitive information, and personal data. Wherever it is stored — on the computer or on paper — it can be kept secure and inaccessible to unauthorized individuals.
2. ISO 27001 certification
Implementing an ISMS is the first step in becoming ISO 27001 certified. Your ISO 27001 implementation will help you go towards that goal.
3. Information security cost reduction
An ISMS helps companies to perform information security risk assessment, which reduces the cost of maintaining the system without diminishing safety.
4. Safeguards confidentiality, integrity and availability of data
An ISMS is a set of policies, procedures and techniques to ensure that your information is safe and secure.
5. Enhances defence against cyber-attacks
By implementing an Information Security Management System, your organization will be better prepared for a cyberattack — able to create a strategy for effective risk management and reduce vulnerabilities.
6. Shields against evolving security threats
An ISMS continuously evolves in response to evolving security risk, which results in lower overall threats for both the environment and the organization.
7. Improves company work culture
The holistic approach of ISMS covers not only the IT department but the entire organization — people, processes, and technologies. This ensures employees are aware of security threats and able to include security measures in their daily routine.
8. Reduces security-related costs
ISMS adopts a risk assessment approach, allowing organizations to reduce the risks they incur by adding defensive technology that might not work at all.
9. Provides the entire organization protection
An ISMS not only protects your organization from potential technology-based security threats, but it can also protect you from employees who may be unaware of the security measures in place or are inefficient at their jobs.
10. Centrally managed framework
An ISMS provides a framework to help you protect your organization from security-based risks. All of these can be managed in one place, making it easy to maintain compliance and avoid getting overwhelmed.
Why do you need an ISMS?
An ISMS is essential for achieving ISO 27001 certification. It's important because it demonstrates your organization's approach to information security controls and allows you to identify any opportunities or threats relating to your organization's data.
The true sign that you're successfully managing your information security is having a comprehensive data protection system in place — and that's what we help you build.
How does ISMS work?
An ISMS provides a systematic approach for managing the information security of an organization — including processes, security controls, and board level, managerial level, and staff responsibilities. It follows the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) model for continual improvement:
Plan
ISO 27001 establishes the three key elements of ISMS processes: process standards and guidelines, a framework for implementing these into your company, and continual improvement based on the PDCA model.
Do
By implementing the procedures and policies outlined in the standard, you'll be able to keep your company as safe as possible, based on ISO standards and the resources available to your organization.
Check
Monitor the effectiveness of IT security policies and controls, and evaluate tangible outcomes as well as behavioral aspects associated with IT processes.
Act
Use a feedback loop to modify and improve your ISMS policies and controls as needed. Document past iterations and share knowledge across your teams.
ISMS security controls
ISO 27001 security controls span many facets of information security, including a company's culture and management:
- Information security policies — a firm, clear direction unique to your organization's context, business needs, and threats.
- Organization of information security — mitigating risks like system malfunctions, data breaches, and data loss from both external and insider threats.
- Asset management — protecting the sensitive information involved in communications within and beyond the business's IT network.
- Human resource security — measures to reduce insider threats and train staff to spot unintentional security lapses.
- Physical and environmental security — protecting physical devices from harm, theft, and unauthorized use, alongside cloud-based data.
- Communications and operations management — operating daily service provisioning and problem management to the same IT security standards.
- Access control — limiting who can access data and how, without restricting employees from the information they need to do their jobs.
- Information system acquisition, development, and maintenance — maintaining security at all times, including when buying or developing new systems.
- Information security incident management — identifying and resolving IT issues per best practice, using advanced network intelligence where needed.
- Business continuity management — backup plans and recovery procedures that minimize damage from interruptions.
- Compliance — ensuring clients remain in accordance with regulatory bodies and international standards.
- Cryptography — managing and enforcing cryptographic controls as part of an ongoing security journey, not a one-off fix.
- Supplier relationships — enforcing IT security policies and contractual obligations to mitigate third-party vendor risk.
In practice, this comes down to a few consistent habits: understand your business needs, establish an information security policy, monitor data access, conduct security awareness training, secure devices, encrypt data, back up data, and conduct internal security audits.
Implementing an ISMS
Most organizations follow the Plan-Do-Check-Act methodology or the ISO 27001 international security standard to detail their ISMS requirements. Here are the steps:
1. Define the scope and objectives
Identify which assets need to be protected and why. Management should establish clear-cut objectives and limitations for the security policy.
2. Identify assets
Inventory your business's critical assets — hardware, software, services, information, databases, and physical locations — by creating a business process map.
3. Recognize the risks
Identify the assets integral to your infrastructure, assess the risks they face, and determine which risks are acceptable versus which must be addressed.
4. Identify mitigation measures
Lay out a clear plan to handle and minimize identified risks — for example, a policy on what employees are and aren't allowed to store on their laptops to reduce data theft risk.
5. Make improvements
Continuously monitor, audit, and check previous measures. If new risks emerge or deficiencies are detected, repeat the ISMS process.
Ready to put an information security management system in place? See how ITS247 supports ISO 27001 certification, or start with an ISO 27001:2022 gap assessment.
Back to Insights