Ultimate Guide to Renew Your ISO 27001 Certification
This article shows businesses how to renew their ISO 27001 certification, the benchmark certification for information security management, which is valid for 3 years.
When organisations get the ISO 27001 certification, an important thing that they should be concerned about is its limited validity period. It is valid for only 3 years which means they should review, audit, and improve their ISMS (Information Security Management System) to ensure its compliance with the latest requirements of the standard. Failing to recertify after every 3 years can be the biggest flaw of your information security effort! It makes your ISMS incompetent with outdated practices and increases the likelihood of security risks and breaches in your organisation. Here are some pointers on out how you can renew the ISO certification for your business every time successfully.
5 Tips to Ensure Successful Renewal of Your ISO 27001 Certification
Conduct Periodic Reviews
The foremost needed step is to monitor and keep an eye on the ISMS through reviews at periodic intervals, every 3 or 6 months. However, when the recertification time approaches, the ISMS must be compulsorily reviewed and improved. As the business processes grow and diversify with time, security challenges evolve. Hence, you need new practices and security controls to incorporate in the ISMS to maintain your organisation’s information security. Not only IT personnel, but managers or leaders of your organisation should also participate in the review process. The managers should remain up to date about the changes required in the ISMS and arrange for training sessions accordingly. The leaders’ participation is necessary to ensure that all the revisions made on the ISMS result in fruitful outcomes.
Update the Documents
A crucial point to consider for certification renewal is updating the documents related to the ISMS. As new practices and security controls are introduced, it is necessary to also modify the ISMS documents to ensure they are compliant with ISO requirements. Updating of documentation is also required to enable your management to revise the information security policies and guidelines to make them adaptable to the changes.
Conduct Risk Assessment Frequently
This step is crucial when you need your organisation to remain compliant with an information security standard. In this fast-changing digital landscape, businesses are the soft targets of cybercriminals and hackers. Threats are constant and so every business should act wisely in defending their information systems and assets. For this reason, risk management is made an intrinsic requirement of the standard. You should consistently assess and review the information systems for potential risks and update the risk management strategy accordingly. Frequent risk assessment firstly ensures that the risks are identified at the source and properly mitigated or treated. Secondly, it assures that your ISMS is still competent enough to deal with every emerging risk or new threat and hence is ready to be recertified.
Audit the ISMS Before Certification Expires
This implies evaluating the practices of ISMS thoroughly to check whether they are still compliant with the requirements of the ISO 27001 standard. If nonconformities are discovered, the management team should be reported to, and their suggestions should be taken on resolving them. The corrective actions or measures required for rectifying the nonconformities should be undertaken as soon as possible by involving senior employees. Once all the nonconformities are addressed, your organisation is ready for recertification audit.
Consider Employees’ Role in ISMS Compliance Maintenance
Do not forget to include the employees in maintaining your ISMS compliance and ISO certification. They must be fully trained about the practices and security controls enforced by the ISMS and follow them dedicatedly, but they also should be well informed about every ongoing change and the need for recertification. They should know the compliance terms well and ensure their practices are consistently compliant with ISO 27001 requirements. The best ways to keep the employees in the loop and make their roles stronger in maintaining ISMS certification are to conduct awareness programs and strengthen the communication between management and employees.
The good thing is that renewal or recertification is not as difficult as the actual certification procedure. What you most need is to keep your eyes on the ISMS consistently and never go off track. Maintaining the ISMS’s compliance is simply not enough for maintaining your ISO 27001 certification. You also need to ensure that its competence improves, and it can resolve all new evolving information security challenges and reconcile every threat. Clearly, the participation of the management team and employees are essential.
Author Bio:
Damon Anderson is the owner and head consultant of a trusted ISO certification consultancy in Australia which offers a range of assurance services and strives to make businesses ISO certified at one go. He is specialised in the ISO 27001 certification and likes to spend his free time penning articles on ISMS, ISO 27001, and compliance maintenance.
Contact Details:
Business Name: Compliancehelp
Email: sales@compliancehelp.com.au
Phone: 1800 503 401
