- Assess whether current board culture, composition and agendas are fit for purpose in the current disruptive business environment.Assess the current team culture, composition, priorities, skills & competences, expertise, relationships, interests etc. with a view towards the future. How should the team evolve or adapt to changing circumstances, building on past successes and learning from failures?
Friday 19 April 2024
Systematically improving professional services
Thursday 18 April 2024
Measuring and managing ethics
KPMG's Soft Controls model caught my beady eye this week:
Thursday 28 March 2024
An evolutionary revolution?
"Mitigation and adaptation are required together to reduce the risks and impacts of climate change, including extreme weather events. Mitigation refers to actions taken to limit the amount of greenhouse gas emissions, reducing the amount of future climate change. Adaptation refers to actions taken to limit the impacts of a changing climate. Mitigation and adaptation together provide co-benefits for other environmental and social goals."
That paragraph by Lizzie Fuller, Climate Science Communicator for the UK's Met Office, plucked from another excellent digest of lessons learned from various UK resilience exercises and initiatives, obviously concerns climate change ... but it occurs to me that 'mitigate and adapt' might be a novel approach to information risks and impacts as well.
Wednesday 27 March 2024
Pragmatic ISMS implementation guide (free!)
Early this morning (very early!) I remotely attended an ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27/WG 1 editing meeting in London discussing the planned revision of ISO/IEC 27003:2017.
- 27003 is to be revised to align with the current 2022 releases of ISO/IEC 27001, 27002 and 27005:
- These changes are mostly minor aside from the new section 6.3 on ISMS changes.
Saturday 23 March 2024
Knit your own security metrics
"I saw your pragmatic book but I was confused on the way criteria and no’s were assigned. If you could guide will really help. I’m doing a RBI Based compliance assessment where regulator has asked for such metrics. Help would be really appreciated."
Here's my reply.
For guidance on choosing which metrics to take a look at and maybe score, I recommend Lance Hayden's book "IT Security Metrics" which describes the Goal-Question-Metric approach.
Tuesday 12 March 2024
A nightmare on DR street
A provocative piece on LinkeDin by Brian Matsinger caught my beady eye and sparked my fertile imagination today. I'm presently busy amplifying the disaster recovery advice in NIS 2 for a client. When I say 'amplifying', I mean generating an entire awareness and training piece on the back of a single mention of 'disaster recovery' in all of NIS 2. Just the one. Blink and you'll miss it.
Oh boy.
Anyway, Brian points out that recovering from disasters caused by 'cyber attacks' requires a different DR approach than is usual for physical disasters such as storms, fires and floods. Traditional basic DR plans are pretty straightforward: essentially, the plans tell us to grab recent backups and pristine systems, restore the backups onto said systems, do a cursory check then release services to users. Job's a good 'un, off to the pub lads.
Wednesday 28 February 2024
ISMS implementation project guidance checklist
Project definition, justification, scoping and planning
⬚ Study
the standards, in depth: complete lead implementer training if possible.
⬚ Study
the business, in depth, to understand its objectives, strategies, culture, governance
arrangements, existing information risk and security management etc.
⬚ If
the organisation has a defined, structured approach for this phase, use it!
⬚ Build
a business case that identifies and promotes the business benefits of the ISMS.
⬚ Look beyond ‘security’ and ‘compliance’ e.g. helping management to manage business risks, supporting/enabling other business initiatives and strategies.
Tuesday 27 February 2024
Mil-spec management lessons
"A calamity can often strike without warning. Whether it be generated by humans or a natural disaster, leaders need to be ready to direct their teams in the aftermath. In order to be ready for crisis, leadership skills, like any others, must be practised over and over beforehand. So the way you lead in the quiet times helps to build the skills you need when you have to dig deep."
That paragraph plucked from this month's impressive NZ Airforce newsletter about the military response to the devastating flooding caused by cyclone Gabrielle here in Hawkes Bay caught my beady eye this morning.
The idea of practicing incident management as well as incident handling or operations on relatively small incidents makes perfect sense.
Monday 26 February 2024
27001 & climate change
Like other ISO management systems standards, ISO/IEC 27001:2022 has just been amended to incorporate two small wording changes:
- “The organization shall determine whether climate change is a relevant issue” (clause 4.1);
- “NOTE: Relevant interested parties can have requirements related to climate change.” (clause 4.2).
Friday 23 February 2024
ISMS internal audit priorities
Sunday 18 February 2024
Mandatory documentation in ISO27001
1. ISMS
scope (Clause 4.3);
2. Information
security policy (Clause 5.2);
3. Information
security risk assessment procedure (Clause 6.1.2);
4. Statement
of applicability (Clause 6.1.3 d);
5. Information
security risk treatment procedure (Clause 6.1.3);
6. Information
security objectives (Clause 6.2);
7. Personnel
records (Clause 7.2);
8. ISMS
operational information (Clause 8.1);
9. Risk
assessment reports (Clause 8.2);
10. Risk
treatment plan (Clause 8.3);
11. Security
measurements (Clause 9.1);
12. ISMS
internal audit programme and audit reports (Clause
9.2.2);
13. ISMS
management review reports (Clause 9.3.3);
14. Records of nonconformities and corrective actions (Clause 10.1).
Sunday 11 February 2024
Innovative approaches to ISO/IEC 27001 implementation
This week I've read an interesting, inspiring piece by Robin Long exploring the costs, benefits, approaches and strategic options for implementing ISO27k.
I like Robin's idea of trying things out and banking some 'security wins' before committing to a full implementation. A full-scope ISMS is a major commitment requiring strong understanding and support from management, requiring a high degree of trust in the team and CISO/ISM/project leader as well as the [planned] ISMS. Demonstrating and celebrating security wins is a good way to build trust and sustain it, once the ISMS is running.