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Bits and Bytes – The No. 1 Formula for Learning the Benefits of How to get ISO Certification for Software Company

Bits and Bytes – The No. 1 Formula for Learning the Benefits of How to get ISO Certification for Software Company

ISO 9001, ISO/IEC 27001

Understanding how to get ISO certification for software company brings a lot of potential and possibilities for a small business. Certification underlines the company’s dedication to upholding industry standards.

Indeed reinforces this by stating that ISO certification establishes credibility within the industry and increases consumer trust with their service provider.

Many software companies avoid ISO certification because they don’t think the standards apply to their industry.

This opinion isn’t strictly true. Software companies stand to benefit from implementing two essential ISO standards: ISO 9001 and ISO 27001.

In this article, we’ll delve into what these certifications are and what they bring to the table for software companies.

Defining The Standards for How to Get ISO Certification for Software Company

Software companies, like many small businesses, utilize several standard practices. ISO 9001, as we previously explained, deals with establishing a quality management service within the company.

The International Standards Organization itself states that certifications from the ISO 9000 family help businesses to maintain the quality of their products and customer service through an iterative methodology.

In particular, software companies depend upon excellent customer support and high-quality products to help make a name for themselves and stand out from the competition.

Another vital certification that software companies shouldn’t overlook is ISO 27001.

We’ve touched on how this particular certification can be critical to small businesses since it deals primarily with data protection.

The International Standards Organization mentions that the ISO 27001 certification offers peace of mind when it comes to data security by helping a business establish an Information Security Management System (ISMS).

How to Get ISO Certification for Software Company – The Steps Involved

Each of these ISO certification standards has its own requirements, and as such, we will be covering each one separately.

ISO 9001

In a previous post, we mentioned a simplified 5-step process that a company could undertake to achieve ISO 9001 certification. For those who missed that post, the five steps we mentioned are:

  1. Get Informed:
    Source basic and essential information about the ISO certification process. Companies should start by designating a member of staff as the “point person” for this process, making them the go-to person for all ISO-related issue.
  2. Prepare Documentation:
    ISO 9001 is heavily based on documentation. At this stage, a company should be getting the documents they currently have and note the materials they lack compared to what the standard requires.
  3. Implement Certification Requirements:
    Using the information generated from the previous step, a company can note its weakest areas and its lack of documentation. Taking into account the requirements for certification, the company can see where they comply with the regulations entirely, partially, or not at all.
  4. Internal Audit:
    Once the company has arranged its documentation, it can undergo an internal audit. At this stage, the company inspects its documentation and compares it to the requirements. Glaring errors can be picked up and rectified here, and the company may need to go through multiple internal audits before it’s ready for the next step.
  5. External Audit and Certification:
    A third-party certification body will visit the company in the final step and perform a thorough audit of the company’s documents and system improvements. If it meets the standards, the company will achieve ISO 9001 certification.

ISO 27001

We also outlined a detailed methodology of how a company can obtain ISO 27001 certification in a past post. The process is a bit more involved, covering eleven steps:

  1. Identify objectives
  2. Get management on board with the plan
  3. Ensure the scope of the project is acceptable
  4. Develop an ISMS brief covering the policy
  5. Define the Methodology for Risk Assessment and the Strategy the company intends to pursue
  6. Develop a risk treatment plan and manage the risks that already exist within the system
  7. Create policies to take on risks
  8. Define the resources required for implementing those policies and train the staff to be more aware of the implementation process
  9. Monitor the ISMS after it goes online
  10. Prepare for an internal audit
  11. Have management review the ISMS periodically for improvements or updates

Certification Raises Marketability

A company that learns how to get ISO certification for software company raises its stature on the open market. Businesses know they can trust ISO certified companies. As a result, those companies tend to get more consideration compared to others in tendering processes around the world.

If you’d like to have a more competitive business, contact Sync Resource today, and let’s help you achieve how to get ISO certification for software company.

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ISO 27001 Risk Management Methodology

ISO 27001 Risk Management Methodology

ISO/IEC 27001

Overview of ISO 27001 Risk Management

ISO 27001 risk management is an internationally recognized standardized management system and its core is Information Security Management System (ISMS) under which Information Security Risk Assessment will be executed.

The core purpose of ISO 27001 is to ensure data security, company’s confidentiality and grants you an ability to bring customers in your trust that their information is completely secured with you with a process based approach along with fulfillment of all the requirements of information Security Management System (ISMS).

As far as Information Security Risk Assessment is concerned, it is defined as a process where an assessor will try to identify any risk existing in your current management system that may cause harm to the system, your products/ services or to your information confidentiality that may put your clients to potential risk.

Best Practices of ISO 27001 Risk Management 

The framework of ISO 27001 risk management highlights following best practices of system security and risk management:

  • Protection of Employee’s and Client’s information
  • Effective risk management by managing system’s security
  • To become 100% compliant with regulations and standards such European Union General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR)
  • Company and Brand image protection

 ISO 27001 Risk Management:  Section 6.1.2 

The section 6.1.2 of ISO 27001 states clauses about risk management procedure for security of information:

  • Establishment of Risk management criteria and identification of potential risks to the security management system.
  • Establishment of periodic risk assessments in order to accomplish consistency in quality of deliverable.
  • Identification of potential risks that can threaten security of information security management system.
  • Evaluation of information security system, recording and analysis of the results according to risks identification criteria.

Rock Solid Seven Foundation Steps to Effective ISO 27001 Risk Management

  • Design Risk Management Methodology

ISO 27001 risk management methodology should be based on concrete security criteria, scale of risk, scenario and asset based risk assessment.

  • Company’s Information Asset Listing

Valuable company’s information asset includes confidential information in the form of hard copy , soft copy, external provider, people and so on. Make an existing list of Company’s informational assets. If the list already exists then do a verification check if the list is updated with all the assets or not.

  • Identification of Potential Threats and Risks

After identification of company’s information asset, the next significant step is to highlight all the possible potential risks that can be applied to each company’s information asset.

  • Measure the Extent of Risk

Build a risk matrix in which list down all the risks involved, predict its likelihood, occurrence and severity. Assess the risk to confidentiality, integrity and availability of these assets.

  • Risks Mitigation

Classify all the predicted risks into High, Medium and low priority. Devise a plan to mitigate, eliminate or substitute those risks with optimum solutions.

  • Risks Reports Compilation

Compile the risks reports in which risk matrix with risks mitigation plans has been mentioned.

  • Review and Monitoring of Plan

The basic requirement of ISO 27001 is to update (if needed), review and monitor the risk management plan from time to time in order to monitor the risks and its mitigation plan performance with rapid changing environment.

Other ISO standards for Risk Management

Following enlisted are the ISO standards that supports ISO 27001 in risk management approach:

  • ISO 27005:2011 – Guidelines for risk management for information security
  • ISO 31000:2009 – Basic Principles about Risk Management
  • ISO 31010:2009 – Methodologies and Standardized Approach about Risk Assessment and its Techniques

Want to consult an ISO advisor? Tap us for ISO consultancy today.

Top Key Benefits of ISO 27001 Implementation

 Among numerous benefits of ISO 27001 implementation, here comes some top key benefits of ISO 27001:

  • Competitive Marketing Edge

Having ISO 27001 being deeply embedded in your management system gives you a unique selling point (USP) to represent to clients. Plus it will help you to be different to your competitors when it comes to tender winning race. Your marketing team will definitely get an edge over marketplace competitors hence giving you more chances to enter to new business opportunities.

  • Cost Effective Solution

A common myth exists in market that putting information security in your system gives you no financial gain which is totally wrong. Think of the financial loss that you may face due to leakage of confidential information of your business or about your clients’ business giving your brand reputation a smashing hit that is nearly impossible to get recovered.

Take this fact the other way around. Imagine the amount of money you could have saved if you could have somehow was able to prevent the confidential information compromise/leakage incident. Hence, prevention is better than cure.

  • Better Business Management

ISO 27001 is a proven tool to get your business in the order just as you always wanted to have. But How? The guidelines of ISO 27001 helps in great extent to define and divide the roles and responsibilities among the team ensuring employees’ engagement to the next level making your journey towards success more systematic.

  • Fulfillment of Quality Compliance

Want to have something which can give you quick “Return on Investment” then ISO 27001 compliance is just the right thing to do. Be it data protection, privacy and IT security, ISO 27001 caters to all the factors of compliance which makes you ultimately more trustworthy among customers, suppliers and vendors.

  • Awareness on Risk Management Among Employees

Through various training and refresher sessions, the awareness level on risk management can ensure employees’ focus on better risk management. With focus on social engineering and tests to ensure employees have good understanding of ISO 27001, Management have been able to minimize the risk to the entire organization.

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ISO 27001 Certification Benefits

ISO 27001 Certification Benefits

ISO/IEC 27001

Why should you get ISO 27001 certified? One empirical reason is for security. In a data-concentric and modern economy, protecting your data is a regulatory and legislative requirement. ISO 27001 certification helps you better meet customer needs, legal requirements and protect critical corporate data. Your company’s sensitive information is always under a barrage of threats.

You must prevent attacks every way possible. Creating a security system for the management of information, such as (ISMS) must have compliance with the ISO certificate.

More reasons to get ISO 27001 Certification

Security of data is essential for businesses in almost every industry. By securing data, you can avoid the cost of data gaps. Financial losses, adverse effects on reputation and penalties may be costly for every company that suffers a breach. Become more security savvy by adhering to and implementing ISO 27001 compliance within your organization.

Getting ISO 27001 Certification Improves Your Reputation

Getting ISO 27001 certification proves that you are enthusiastic to protect the data of your customers and collaborates. You will be able to meet the higher security demands of customers. Both customers and businesses are becoming security savvy so you should consider their security to win their trust.

Compliance with Global, State and Local Security Laws

Some legislation like NIS of European Union requires appropriate protection for data. After seeking certification, you can ensure that you are ready for business around the world. A 27001 ISO certification can be obtained by having a system and control independent audit. The audit will demonstrate that your data is secured and practice is sound.

Put ISO 2700 Certificate in Action

Implementation of information security management system ISMS project involves some critical step. Every juncture allows you to work systematically to address and identify the threats that can cost your business. While the needs and systems of each organization can be different; you can distill down this step as per the following procedures.

Perform a Risk Analysis

If you want to create an ideal system, you can start with the assessment of current risk and current practices. Pay attention to the gaps between present information and procedures that need ISO 27001 certification. You must assess the resources and capabilities to decrease the jeopardy and bridge the gap.

Choose the Scope of ISMS

In your protection plan, you must determine the assets that need protection. There is no particular answer when you define ISMS. You must ensure that you will not leave the valuable assets susceptible to unanticipated risks.

Create a Security Policy

You should have a strong policy to protect valuable information. The policy must have the flexibility to permit all participants to choose work as per their convenience. You have to work across different departments to ensure that each person understands the causes for policies and its requirements for appropriate implementation. A system may not work for all participants.

Choose the Controls to Decrease Your Risk

Once you determine the risk, you have to find out the ways to mitigate this risk and control it. These controls must efficiently cut the hazard of incursions. In ISO 27001, it is essential to compare controls that you may put in place with a list of best practices. While pursuing certification, you have to make SoA (Statement of Applicability) that addresses particular controls to apply and exclude or include it from plans.

Create a Plan for Risk Treatment

The plan addresses the way to address the risks that you classify during risk assessment. It works as a blueprint to decrease risk and address issues as they arise. You must create the necessary documentation and interconnect these documentations to your staff. It is an integral part of your business. Train your staff and create clear documentation on appropriate procedures to keep your business safe.

Adjust Regular Testing

The organizations need consistent change as they grow. You have to test your controls and system to ensure that you remain protected and safe. It will need efficient ISMS for ongoing nurturing and must bring some changes in systems, clientele, and personnel to change the security needs of your company. You can address the needs and move forward.

ISO 27001 Certified Associates to Dedicated Hosting and Cloud Environments

Extensive guidelines of ISO 27001 make it all-encompassing for information technology systems that may include cloud and dedicated hosting environments and your data centers.

ISO 27001 is a part of a widely recognized ISO 27000 series. The series is extensively documented and use particular standards related to the ICT security systems. The CSCC (cloud standards (principles) customer council) notes two main standards like 27001 & 27002. The ISO 27001 is flexible for different types of companies to satisfy their security needs. This flexibility is excellent because the parameters remain pragmatic and reasonable.

The element that you may have to consider while looking at hosts is the method in which these elements are involved with ISMS procedures. It can be a challenge for many organizations to implement these standards. You have to focus on core procedures sourced from the information of the company. These are important to offer the real value to users.

Getting ISO 27001 certified is helpful to describe and shape the goals of your company and goals. You have to focus on supporting procedures. These procedures don’t have value for users and customers. These procedures are tasked with monitoring and administration for support of core and management procedures. For example, human resources, financial management, and IT management.

The compliance may be confusing and stressful, but you will get its vast benefits from a dedicated or cloud host. With ISO 27001, you can review IT systems of your organization. To increase the trust of your company among customers, you will need different compliance certifications and ISO 27001 is one of them.

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ISO/IEC 27001 Implementation — Step By Step Guide

ISO/IEC 27001 Implementation — Step By Step Guide

ISO/IEC 27001

 

If you are planning to integrate and implement ISO 27001 within your organization, you will probably look for an easy way out. Unfortunately, there isn’t any “easy-way-out” for the successful implementation of  ISO/IEC 27001 Standard.

However, to make it easier for you we have compiled a step-by-step implementation guide for ISO 27001 Standard to successfully implement the ISO 27001 – Information Security Management System Standard. Below are the required steps that you should be following for the upright implementation of ISO 27001 (ISMS).

Step 1 – Identify the Objectives of your Business

It is important to identify and prioritize objectives in order to gain full management support. To start off, the primary objectives of the organization can be extracted from but not limited to the company’s mission, IT goals, and other strategic plans. Some prominent objectives of the organization can be:

  • Amplified marketing potential
  • Assurance and confirmation to other business partners of the company’s status in compliance with information security and security.
  • Increased total company’s revenue and profits by providing the utmost security to the client’s data and information.
  • Reassurance to the company’s clients and stakeholders about the company’s commitment towards information security, data and information protection along with privacy.
  • Proper compliance with industry regulations and guidelines

Step 2 – Obtain Management Support

The involvement of Management is important to successfully commit to, in compliance with planning, implementation, monitoring, operation, detailed reviews, continuous maintenance and iterative improvement of ISO 27001 (ISMS). Consistent commitment must incorporate activities, for example, guaranteeing that the correct assets are accessible to deal with the ISMS and that all representatives influenced by the ISMS have the best possible training, know-how, and competency.

Step 3 – Define the Scope

According to ISO 27001 (ISMS), any scope of implementation may be applied to all or any part of the organization. If you are a small organization, implementing it in all parts of the organization would help you lower down the risk occurrence.

According to section B.2.3 of ISO 27001 – Scope of the ISMS, only the procedures, business units, and external vendors or contractors falling within the “scope of implementation” must be specified for certification to occur.

The scope of the project/organization should be kept manageable and it is advised to add only those parts of the organization – logical or physical within the organization.

Step 4 – Write a brief ISMS Policy

In your organization’s ISMS, an ISMS policy is the highest level and most important document. It doesn’t have to be extensive, however brief information about the basic issues of information security management framework within your company. The purpose of having an ISMS Policy is for the management to explain your employees and resources about what needs to be achieved and how it can be controlled.

Step 5 – Define Risk Assessment Methodology & Strategy

Prepare a list of information assets and services that need to be protected. To do that, it is important to formulate a risk assessment methodology to follow in order to assess, resolve and control risks as per their importance.

The different risks associated with resources, alongside the proprietors, present locality, practicality, and substitution estimation of such assets, ought to be identified and distinguished separately.

Step 6 – Create a Risk Treatment Plan & Manage those Risks

Through a risk treatment plan, as an organization, you will be able to distinguish and categorize risks as per their impact and sensitivity. To successfully control the impact related to different risks associated with assets, the organization should follow risk mitigation by accepting, avoiding, transferring, or reducing the risks to a certain level of acceptance.

The plan will brief you on who will do what, with whom, with what budget in the organization in terms of risk assessment and treatment. This is a crucial step to follow for a successful implementation of ISO 27001.

Step 7 – Set Up Policies and Procedures to Control Risks

The organization regardless of its size will need to have a detailed procedure or statements of policy for the controls adopted along with a user responsibility document. This would allow the organization to identify user roles and responsibilities for the consistent, effective and actual implementation of those policies and practices.

The accurate documentation of policies and procedures is required by ISO 27001. However, the list of policies and procedures and their applicability depends on the organization’s location, assets, and overall structure.

Step 8 – Allocate Required Resources and Implement Training plus Awareness Programs

If you want your employees and workers to adopt and implement all new procedures and policies, then first you need to brief them about what it is and why these policies are important, and further train your personnel to have the required skills and capacity to perform and execute the policies and procedures. An absence of such required exercises is yet another important reason behind ISO 27001 project failures.

Step 9 – Carefully Monitor the ISMS

As an organization, you should be aware of,

  • What’s happening in your integrated ISMS?
  • What incidents have occurred so far and of what type?
  • Are all the procedures and policies are carried out properly as described?

This a point where the objectives of monitoring, control, and measurement methodologies come all together. This is where you should evaluate and monitor if the achieved goals are met in accordance with the set objectives or not.

If you are not achieving goals as per your set standards then it is an indicator that there is something wrong and you should perform some corrective actions to make it right.

Step 10 – Prepare for an Internal Audit

Most of the time, in any organization employees, perform certain acts knowingly or unknowingly that is wrong and affect the organization’s performance and reputation. In order to pinpoint such existing and potential problems, it is important to perform an internal audit. The point of an internal audit is to take required preventive or corrective actions rather initiating any disciplinary actions against the employees.

Step 11 – Periodic Management Review

Management is not required to create and work on building a firewall for information security rather they should know what is going on within ISMS and how efficiently and effectively the policies and procedures are being dealt with. Management review includes whether the policies of ISMS are being followed or not and if desired results have been achieved or not. On the basis of such factors, management takes crucial decisions.

iso 27001 implementation guide infographic

Conclusion

ISO 27001 can be achieved by its proper alignment with the set business objectives and efficiency in comprehending those goals. Information Technology and other departments of an organization play a significant role in employing ISO 27001 (ISMS).

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ISO 27001 Information Security In Project Management

ISO 27001 Information Security In Project Management

ISO/IEC 27001

ISO 27001 Information Security ensures security in any project. Project Managers are certainly not expected to be experts in information security, however by including and integrating ISO 27001 Information Security within different phases, procedures and processes of each project, most importantly in project initiation and planning, project communication and project deliverable Project Managers can avail a secured opportunity and platform to deliver more secure and safe systems.

Considering the latest edition ISO 27001:2013, the inclusion of information security is a totally new feature which aims to integrate within different Project Management processes and procedures. Get further information and understanding of ISO 27001 (ISMS) Information Security Management System to grasp the in-depth understanding of its procedures. ISO 27001 integration and implementation of security needs within Project Management irrespective of the type and size of a project as per Annex A.6.1.5 – Information Security in Project Management.

What is needed to establish ISO 27001 Information Security in Project Management?

All projects whether internal or external needs resources, activities to progress and estimated time for completion of each project as per assigned milestones. Information Security can be integrated and implementation in different Project Management activities such as:

  • Include and properly integrate information security within project objectives and deliverables. It is important to set measurable security objectives in order to have a well-secured plan with minimal lope holes for security breach or threat. Specific deliverables will indicate as measurable. Having measurable objectives such as; the company aims to decrease the information security threats, breaches and incidents by 50% at the end of 2018. This is a specific goal, where the project manager understands what is required and when is it required.
  • Implementation of risk assessment in the initial stages of the project. Risk Assessment is considered as the most difficult yet very important part of any Information Security Project. If you have the standard tools, resources and clear objectives of what is needed than having a clear and extensive risk assessment at the start of the project can reduce the chances of failure in the project. The main aim of information security in project management is to minimize the occurrence of incidents by assessing risks throughout the project baseline. As a project manager, you also need to categorize those risks on the basis of their severity and importance so that each risk can be handled as per its importance to the project.
  • Identify and apply treatment for the identified risks during the initiation phase and make sure to implement required security measures for each identified risk.
  • Make sure to make the information security policy an obligatory part of all the phases and stages of a project.

Please note that it is crucially important to include and integrate ISO 27001 information security management in different project activities, especially of those projects which directly deals with sensitive information and target confidentiality and integrity.

What are the benefits of ISO 27001 Information Security in Project Management?

If you follow and implement information security within your organization it will always stay a part of your management and thus will be implemented in all of your projects. Thus, the organization will also be accountable to and comply with all the clauses and requirements set forward by ISO 27001.

This immediate control will also help to provide required significance and presence to the information security within the organization, which works as a positive set point for any project.

Since it isn’t viewed as a basic necessity of a standard, however as a basic parameter in addressing to and executing any project within the organization. Some prominent benefits of Information Security in Project Management are:

  • It helps the project managers secure the information available in any form within the project including, the company secured documents, digital database, data and information devices and cloud servers etc.
  • It increases resilience to different security threats, including data breaches and cyber-attacks.
  • ISO 27001 provides a single platform or database to manage information security of all projects under one roof while keeping the sensitive information of your organization safe.
  • By implementing ISO 27001 Information Security Management System within the projects especially through the initiation phase, organizations can detect and identify potential risks and respond accordingly. Thus, provides a more secure way to reduce threats of reoccurring risks.

Conclusion

Generally, it is accentuated that information security is a process and not a separate project. However, it is important to understand that each part or component of information security should be taken as a project and must be treated and applied accordingly within the organization and its projects.

The establishment of information security must be taken as a core pillar or basic foundation of any organization and must be integrated seamlessly into the project objectives, activities, and deliverable. Establishment of a successful and secured development policy should be taken as a basic pillar for a secure service.

Looking to get ISO 27001 certification for your business?

What questions do you have and how can we help?

ISO 27001 Information Security In Project Management

 

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