Control A.6.1.5 project management in ISO 27001:2013
Answer: The standard only says that you need to address information security in any type of the project - this means you have to make sure that the information is protected in all your projects. Usually, this can be done the following way:
- include security objectives in overall project objectives
- Include security specifications in your project description
- perform a risk assessment specifically for the project you are to undertake
- make sure security rules/technology are included in all the steps/tasks of the project
- test if the project deliverables are compliant with security specifications
ISO 27001 certification scope - include only HQ or also the branches?
This really depends on the size of the company - if your company is really small, than you should include all your locations; if this is a large international corporation, then you should include only one location.
ISO 27001 does not require a minimum or maximum controls to select, nor does it require to select controls from every section of Annex A. Further, you can select the controls that are not listed in Annex A - that you added on your own.
When you look closely at the Annex A, you will realize two things: (1) it is really difficult to exclude most of the controls because they are common sense - for example, it would be difficult to exclude the control for backup (A.12.3.1) or the control for anti-virus protection (A.12.2.1), and (2) at least 50% of the controls you already did implement before you started your ISO 27001 implementation.
You should identify the interested parties and the issues first, because interested parties may directly influence the scope itself - e.g. some of the government agencies may require you to implement ISMS in your whole company.
Is the computerized machinery considered to be an asset
Answer: Yes, I think that computerized machinery can be considered as assets if the corruption of the information they process could cause the machines to malfunction. When thinking about assets and risks, you should always think about what can compromise the confidentiality, integrity and availability of the information in those assets.
Regarding the risk treatment of such computerized machinery, you have to see whether these computers are connected to a network, and if yes how are they protected from intrusion; also, the question is who has the access to those computers and how do you ensure these people are handling the information in a proper way.
Assets dependence
Cesar,
If you follow our Risk Assessment Table, then you need to identify all the assets, and then threats and vulnerabilities for each asset. This basically means that if you think an incident can impact several assets, then you should mention adequate threats and vulnerabilities for each of those assets.
In other words, you don't have to show direct dependencies between assets because that would only complicate the risk assessment; the dependency will be implicit by identifying the same threats for a group of assets.
Using risks instead of threats
Risk is different from threat: risk is "an uncertain event or condition that, if it occurs, has an effect on at least one objective", while threat is "potential cause of an unwanted incident, which may result in harm to a system or organization". So for instance, the threat is a computer virus, and the risk is the loss of all the information on your computer.
Skype and Dropbox is mainly to reduce the cost to company. Being a small sized IT firm the management is not in a position to buy licensed communication softwares. This may be one such instance but I feel we are compromising on security on many aspects.
How should I handle this situation ? The management is planning to go for external ISO 27001 certification. How should my controls be supporting both security and cost aspect.
Many companies use exactly the same tools, and yet they pass the ISO 27001 certification.
Skype is generally considered to be pretty secure for communication; Dropbox is probably fine if you upload less confidential documents while if you have highly confidential documents it would be probably better to use some other service which encrypts the files before sending them to the cloud. So the point is - you should select your controls based on the assessed risks.
Of course, all the software you are using must be licensed.
SoA
Cesar,
You are free to decide whether the controls from Statement of Applicability will apply to your whole organization or only to the ISMS scope.
However, in case you go for the ISO 27001 certification, then in SoA you should use only the controls that apply to your ISMS scope because otherwise you will have problems with the certification auditor.