Internal
Implementation guidance
The header page and this section, up to and including Disclaimer, must be removed from the final version of the document. For more details on replacing the logo, yellow highlighted text and certain generic terms, see the Completion Instructions document.
Purpose of this document
This is a checklist to be used as a prompter for questions during an internal audit.
Areas of the standard addressed
The main areas of the ISO/IEC 27001 standard addressed by this document are:
• 9. Performance evaluation
o 9.2 Internal audit
• A.5 Organizational controls
o A.5.35 Independent review of information security
General guidance
When conducting an internal audit, it can be useful to have a list of standard questions to ask, organized according to the sections of the ISO/IEC 27001 standard. This makes the audit more interesting than simply reading the requirements from a spreadsheet. It is possible that any one audit will not cover all parts of the standard so you may need to edit this checklist to cover the areas you need. You may also like to add further questions to the lists, depending on the type of organization you are auditing.
At each stage, it is important that evidence is reviewed and recorded to prove that procedures etc. are in place.
Review frequency
We would recommend that this document is reviewed annually.
Document fields
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Internal Audit Checklist
ISMS-FORM-09-4 Version 1
DOCUMENT CLASSIFICATION [Insert classification]
DOCUMENT REF ISMS-FORM-09-4
VERSION 1
DATED [Insert date]
DOCUMENT AUTHOR [Insert name]
DOCUMENT OWNER [Insert name/role]
5 of 28 [Insert date]
1 Audit details
AUDIT
AUDIT SCOPE
AUDITOR(S)
DATE OF AUDIT
2 Clause 4: Context of the Organization
2.1 Clause 4.1: Understanding the organization and its context
RECOMMENDED QUESTIONS
1. What are the internal and external issues that are relevant to the ISMS?
2. How do they affect its ability to achieve its intended outcome?
2.2 Clause 4.2: Understanding the needs and expectations of interested parties RECOMMENDED
1. Who are the interested parties?
2. What are their requirements?
3. How have their requirements been established?
2.3 Clause 4.3: Determining the scope of the ISMS
RECOMMENDED QUESTIONS
1. What is the ISMS scope?
2. How is it defined?
3. Is it reasonable?
4. Does it consider relevant issues and requirements?
5. Does it consider how the organization interacts with other organizations?
6. Is the scope documented?
3 Clause 5: Leadership
3.1 Clause 5.1: Leadership and Commitment
1. Who is defined as top management within the scope of the ISMS?
2. How does top management demonstrate leadership and commitment?
3. Are information security policies and objectives established?
4. Are enough resources allocated to the ISMS?
5. How does top management communicate to everyone involved in the ISMS?
3.2 Clause 5.2: Policy
RECOMMENDED QUESTIONS
1. Can I review the information security policy?
2. Is it appropriate and cover the required areas?
3. Does it include the required commitments?
4. How has it been communicated and distributed and to whom?
3.3 Clause 5.3: Organizational roles, responsibilities and authorities
RECOMMENDED QUESTIONS
1. What are the roles within the ISMS?
2. Are roles and responsibilities documented, for example in an organization chart?
3. Does everyone understand what their responsibilities and authorities are?
4. Who has the responsibility and authority for conformance and reporting?
4 Clause 6: Planning
4.1 Clause 6.1: Actions to address risks and opportunities
RECOMMENDED QUESTIONS
1. Is there a documented risk assessment process?
2. Does it address risk acceptance criteria and when assessments should be done?
3. Are risks and opportunities to the ISMS identified and evaluated?
4. Are interested party requirements and internal and external issues considered?
5. What is the most recent risk assessment?
6. Does it identify a reasonable set of risks and specify owners?
7. Are the likelihood and impact of risks assessed appropriately and risk levels determined?
8. How are the risks then evaluated and prioritized?
9. Is there a documented risk treatment process?
10. Review the most recent risk treatment plan.
11. Are reasonable risk treatment options selected?
12. Are the controls chosen to treat the risks stated clearly?
13. Has a Statement of Applicability been produced and are inclusions and exclusions reasonable?
14. Has the risk treatment plan been signed off by the risk owners?
4.2 Clause 6.2: Information security objectives and planning to achieve them
RECOMMENDED QUESTIONS AUDIT FINDINGS
1. Are there documented information security objectives?
2. Do the objectives comply with section 6.2 a) to e)?
3. Is there a plan to achieve the objectives?
4. Are all the elements in 6.2 f) to j) included?
4.1 Clause 6.3 Planning of changes
1. Is there a process in place for the planning of changes to the ISMS?
2. Has the process been followed for recent changes?
5 Clause 7: Support
5.1 Clause 7.1: Resources
RECOMMENDED QUESTIONS AUDIT FINDINGS
1. How are the resources needed for the ISMS determined?
2. Are the required resources provided?
5.2 Clause 7.2: Competence
RECOMMENDED
1. Have the necessary competences been determined?
2. How has the competence of the people involved in the ISMS been established?
3. What actions have been identified to acquire the necessary competence?
4. Have they been completed and is there evidence of this?
5.3 Clause 7.3: Awareness
1. What approach has been taken to providing awareness of the information security policy, contribution to the ISMS and implications of not conforming?
2. Has everyone been covered?
5.4 Clause 7.4: Communication
RECOMMENDED QUESTIONS
1. How has the need for communication been established?
2. Is the approach to communication documented?
3. Is it evident that communication methods are in use?
4. Does the approach cover all areas in 7.4 a) to e)?
5.5 Clause 7.5: Documented information
RECOMMENDED QUESTIONS
1. Is all the documented information required by the standard in place?
2. Is the level of other documentation reasonable for the size of ISMS?
3. Are appropriate documentation standards –for example, identification, format – in place?
4. Are the documentation standards applied in a uniform way?
5. Are appropriate controls in place to meet 7.5.3 a) to f)?
6. How are documents of external origin handled?
6 Clause 8: Operation
6.1
Clause 8.1: Operational planning and control
RECOMMENDED QUESTIONS
1. What plans are available to review?
2. Do they cover requirements, objectives and risk treatments?
3. What planned changes have taken place recently and how were they controlled?
4. What processes are outsourced?
5. How are they controlled?
6.2 Clause 8.2: Information security risk assessment
RECOMMENDED QUESTIONS
1. What are the planned intervals for risk assessments?
2. What significant changes have happened that have prompted a risk assessment to be carried out?
6.3 Clause 8.3: Information security risk treatment
1. What is the status of the risk treatment plan(s)?
2. How is it updated?
3. How is the success of the treatment judged?
7 Clause 9: Performance evaluation
7.1 Clause 9.1: Monitoring, measurement, analysis and evaluation
RECOMMENDED QUESTIONS
1. How is it determined what should be monitored and measured?
2. Review evidence of monitoring and measurement.
3. What procedures are in place to cover monitoring and measurement in different areas?
4. How are results reported?
7.2 Clause 9.2: Internal audit
RECOMMENDED QUESTIONS AUDIT FINDINGS
1. How often are internal audits carried out?
2. Who carries them out?
3. Are the auditors objective and impartial?
4. Review the most recent internal audit report.
5. Have any nonconformities resulting from previous audits been addressed?
6. Does the audit programme cover the complete scope of the ISMS?
7.3 Clause 9.3: Management review
REVIEWED
RECOMMENDED QUESTIONS AUDIT FINDINGS EVIDENCE REVIEWED
1. How often are management reviews carried out?
2. Who attends them?
3. Are they minuted?
4. Review the results of the most recent one.
5. Are all areas in 9.3 a) to f) covered at management reviews?
6. Does the management review represent a reasonable assessment of the health of the ISMS?
8 Clause 10: Improvement
8.1 Clause 10.1: Continual improvement
RECOMMENDED
1. How are improvements identified?
2. Are they recorded?
3. What evidence of continual improvement can be demonstrated?
8.2 Clause 10.2: Nonconformity and corrective action RECOMMENDED
1. How are nonconformities identified?
2. How are they recorded?
3. Review the records of a recent nonconformity.
4. Was appropriate action taken to correct it and address the underlying causes?
5. Was the effectiveness of the corrective action reviewed?
9 Annex A Reference Controls (NB: not all may be applicable)
9.1
A.5 Organizational controls
RECOMMENDED
1. Review the set of policies.
2. Are they all approved?
3. Who have they been communicated to?
RECOMMENDED QUESTIONS
4. When was the last time they were reviewed?
5. Where is segregation of duties used within the organization?
6. Which relevant authorities and special interest groups is contact maintained with and how?
7 How was information security addressed in the most recent project?
8. Is there an asset inventory?
9. Are all assets in the inventory owned?
10. Are rules for the acceptable use of assets identified, documented and implemented?
11 What happens to assets when an employee leaves?
12. What procedures are in place for handling high value assets?
13. Is there an information classification scheme in place?
14. How is information labelled with its classification?
15. What information transfers take place?
16. Are there policies, procedures and controls in place to protect them?
17. Are controls documented in formal agreements?
RECOMMENDED QUESTIONS
18. How is electronic messaging protected?
19. Is there an access control policy?
20 How is it decided which networks and network services a user is authorized to?
21. Is there a formal registration and deregistration process?
22. Is there a formal user access provisioning process?
23 Is there a formal management process to allocate secret authentication information?
24 How are access rights reviewed and how often?
25. What happens to access rights when someone moves or leaves?
26. How is the access control policy implemented within applications e.g. logons, passwords?
27 How are the organization’s security requirements communicated and agreed with suppliers?
28. To what extent are the requirements documented in supplier agreements?
29 Do agreements with suppliers require them to address security risks?
30 How is supplier service delivery monitored, reviewed and audited?
RECOMMENDED QUESTIONS
31 How are changes made by suppliers managed and risk-assessed?
32 Is there an information security incident procedure?
33. Are incident management responsibilities understood?
34 How are information security events and weaknesses reported?
35 How is the decision about whether to classify an event as an incident made?
36 Review how some of the most recent incidents were responded to.
37. How is knowledge gained from incidents re-used?
38. Are procedures in place to ensure that potential evidence is protected?
39. Are information security requirements in the event of a disaster understood?
40 Do business continuity procedures provide for the required level of information security?
41. Are the procedures tested regularly?
42 Is it clear which laws and regulations apply to the organization and its activities?
43. Are contractual obligations understood?
44 Is an approach to meet these requirements in place?
FINDINGS
45 Are procedures implemented to ensure compliance with intellectual property rights?
46. Are records protected in line with the understood requirements?
47. Is privacy and protection of personally identifiable information addressed adequately?
48. Is the organization’s use of cryptographic controls legal and compliant with relevant agreements?
49 How often are independent reviews of information security carried out?
50. How often do managers check their areas comply with information security policies and standards?
51. Review the most recent report on compliance of information systems with agreed information security policies.
52. To what extent are operating procedures documented?
9.2 A.6 People controls
1. What background verification checks are carried out on employment candidates?
2. How is information security covered in employment contracts?
3. How are employees and contractors made aware of, and trained in, information security issues?
4. Is there a formal disciplinary process?
5. What happens when an employee leaves, with respect to information security?
6 Are there non-disclosure agreements in place with key parties?
7 Is there a remote working policy?
8. Review the security measures in place at a specific remote working site.
9.3
A.7 Physical controls
RECOMMENDED
1. Have the physical security perimeter and secure areas been defined?
2. What physical entry controls are in place
3. What physical protections are in place to guard against natural disasters, malicious attack or accidents?
4. Are there procedures for working in secure areas?
5. What controls are in place over delivery and loading areas?
6. How is it decided where to site equipment?
7. What protection is in place from failures of supporting utilities?
8. Is important cabling protected?
9. Review equipment maintenance logs.
10. What is the procedure for taking assets offsite and how are they protected whilst offsite?
11. How is storage media disposed of securely?
12. Is there any unattended equipment that requires protection and if so, how is that provided?
13. Are desks and screens clear of sensitive information and storage media?
14. How is removable media managed, including disposal and transport?
9.4 A.8 Technological controls
RECOMMENDED QUESTIONS
1 Is there a mobile device policy?
2. What security measures are used to manage mobile device risks?
RECOMMENDED QUESTIONS
3 How are privileged access rights controlled?
4. Is access to program source code restricted?
5 How is capacity managed?
6 What controls are in place to handle malware?
7. How aware are users of the threat from malware?
8. How are technical vulnerabilities identified and addressed?
9. What standard device configurations exist?
10. How is information deleted when no longer needed?
11. Are any data masking techniques used?
12. Are data leakage prevention tools in place?
13. What is the backup policy and process of the organization?
14. Are availability requirements identified and is enough redundancy in place to meet them?
15 Are event logs collected and protected from tampering?
16. Are system administrator and operator activities logged and reviewed?
17. How will you know if you have been breached?
RECOMMENDED QUESTIONS
18. How are the clocks of the various infrastructure components synchronized?
19. How is the use of utility programs controlled?
20. How is software installation on operational systems controlled, both at a system and user level?
21. How is network security managed and controlled?
22. How is information passing over public networks e.g. the Internet, protected?
23. For each type of application service, how are transactions protected from known threats?
24. Are network services agreements in place for all relevant services?
25. Do they cover security mechanisms, service levels and management requirements?
26. Is network segregation used and if so how?
27. How do you monitor access to websites?
28. Is there a policy on the use of cryptographic controls?
29. How has it been implemented?
30. Is there a policy covering cryptographic keys?
31. How has it been implemented?
FINDINGS
RECOMMENDED QUESTIONS
32. How is software developed securely within the organization?
33. Is change control in place in the development lifecycle?
34. Are information security requirements included in specifications for new or changed systems?
35. What principles are used when engineering secure systems?
36. What techniques are used to ensure the security of bespoke code?
37. To what extent is system security tested during development?
38. How do you monitor outsourced software development?
39. Are development, testing and operational environments separated?
40. How are development environments protected?
41. How are changes controlled?
42. What process is performed when operating platforms are changed?
43. How much change is made to commercial off-theshelf software?
44. Review records of acceptance testing for most recent system implementation
RECOMMENDED QUESTIONS
45. How are audits carried out without disrupting business processes?