ISO 27001 is the international standard which states best practice for an information security management system (ISMS). This standard applies to every organization regardless of its type, nature or size. It is developed to provide a model for establishing, operating, implementing, reviewing, monitoring and improving ISMS. Below are reasons why you should consider ISO 27001.
Risk Management
ISO 27001 provides an approach for identifying the threats and vulnerabilities which your organization is subject to. Implementing as well as maintaining an ISMS certified ISO 27001 is an effective way to reduce the risk of suffering data breaches. This way you can safeguard your intellectual property and valuable data.
Retain Customer Base and Get New Business
ISO 27001 Certification shows your current and potential clients that you are taking cyber threats with a lot of seriousness. It shows and can make the difference between losing and winning a tender. It also helps organizations to expand into the global market. For instance in India and Japan certification to ISO27001 is a legal requirement.
Clients often change their requirements over time, and when they do so, they increase the security requirements. Organizations with this certification are less affected by such changes. This helps to maintain existing business.
Avoid Financial Penalty
Data breaches are expensive and can damage your business. On average a data breach costs about four million dollars. ISO 27001 is the recognized global benchmark for effective management of information assets and can enable organizations to avoid financial losses and costly penalties.
Compliance with Requirements
The only auditable international standard which defines the requirements of an ISMS is the ISO 27001. It is there to help you meet the needs of different laws and regulations such as the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Data Protection Act (DPA) and Gambling Commission’s Remote gambling and software technical standards (RTS).
Also, organizations are audited for different reasons, and some are directly from clients. The clients have requirements that they expect suppliers to follow. Organizations that are unprepared can go through significant turmoil, cost and time to meet the customer need. Business can be removed from businesses for failing to meet the standard. ISO27001 allows an organization to reach the level of satisfaction of these audits.
Improve your Processes
Inconsistent processes cause security risks and potential breaches. They are also often costly to maintain and inefficient. This standard provides a framework to implement procedures and policies and across an organization. This helps in ensuring processes are repeatable, consistent and maintainable. Besides, the activities will be cost-effective within the organization.
In most organizations, information is critical to the clients and the organizations. This standard allows you to put a framework in place to manage this information. It is prescriptive allowing security to be implemented which is appropriate to the business. It, however, forces control to be improved within your business hence allowing you to worry less. You, therefore, need to consider the ISO 27001.