ISO 27001 Audit Checklist PDF

Certifying for ISO 27001 takes time and dedication – this applies to any business of any size or industry.

Process can be complex and unnerving when you don’t know exactly what is needed for an audit. To help, we have created a simple checklist covering everything an auditor will ask to see during their visit.

1. Risk Assessment
Risk evaluation is a central element of ISO 27001, helping you identify any incidents that could compromise information security and assess their extent. With Sprinto as your ISO 27001 assessment tool, this process becomes far simpler – eliminating tedious versioning spreadsheets, sending mailers for approval from managers and performing other administrative duties that make this job simpler than ever!

Once you have assessed your risks, the next step should be creating a risk treatment plan and documenting its results. Your certification auditor should review this document to show that you have identified threats and vulnerabilities to your information system and devised solutions to treat them while accepting any residual risks that remain.

Sprinto offers a pre-mapped controls list to easily assess and rate risk based on likelihood and impact, helping you select an effective risk treatment strategy from one convenient screen.

2. Policy and Procedures
Once your ISMS has been documented, policies and procedures must be put in place to ensure employees abide by it. These should include roles and responsibilities, definitions (so the policy can be easily understood), audit procedures as well as how to conduct an internal audit.

As part of your ISMS implementation plan, it’s also necessary to put processes in place to monitor its performance. This allows you to track trends in your security practices as well as any areas needing improvement.

Once everything is in place, the next step in attaining ISO 27001 certification will be an audit conducted by an accredited auditor. Like the Stage 2 audit, this audit will review your ISMS for its design and operational effectiveness; should it pass, your company will become fully certified under ISO 27001.

3. Controls
ISO 27001’s primary purpose is ensuring your ISMS and Annex A controls are functional. In order to do this, regular internal audits are key in order to detect threats to data and make sure your ISMS is working as designed.

Annex A controls span the gamut, from assuring data is encrypted to protecting physical information assets. This annex section features 15 individual controls.

Implementing new processes takes time, as does getting everyone onboard with them. A full ISO 27001 certification process may take months or years depending on your business size and data holdings; Drata automates many aspects of audit preparation to save both resources and time.

4. Monitoring and Review
No matter if your goal is ISO 27001 certification or simply to improve information security systems, ensuring compliance and mitigating any security breaches remains key. Regular evaluation, review and update of ISMS are vital in staying compliant and helping reduce the risks of costly security breaches.

Document all locations where your information is stored, how it is accessed and any identified risks. This includes both physical and digital assets.

And then compare those risks with Annex A controls to assess your level of compliance. A certified ISO 27001 auditor will visit your business and audit its documentation and controls, potentially finding major nonconformities which need addressing; having a user-friendly ISO 27001 audit checklist can reduce stress levels during this process and make the whole experience simpler.

5. Training
Although becoming ISO 27001 certified would be ideal, the process can be lengthy and time consuming for larger organizations with complex data management systems and in-depth risk analyses processes.

An ISO 27001 audit checklist template and team building exercise can help make the most of your time. By familiarizing your team with this international standard and its goals for an ISMS implementation project, this will minimize stress during preparations for external audits while simultaneously keeping projects on schedule.