Information Security Management System: ISMS Description
Information Security Management System: ISMS Description
Information Security Management System: ISMS Description
ISMS description
As with all management processes, an ISMS must remain effective and
efficient in the long term, adapting to changes in the internal
organization and external environment. ISO/IEC 27001 therefore
incorporates the typical "Plan-Do-Check-Act" (PDCA), or Deming
cycle, approach:
• The Plan phase is about designing the ISMS, assessing information
security risks and selecting appropriate controls.
ENISA: Risk Management and Isms activities
• The Do phase involves implementing and operating the controls.
• The Check phase objective is to review and evaluate the
performance (efficiency and effectiveness) of the ISMS.
• In the Act phase, changes are made where necessary to bring the ISMS back to peak performance.
The best known ISMS is described in ISO/IEC 27001 and ISO/IEC 27002 and related standards published jointly by
ISO and IEC.
Another competing ISMS is Information Security Forum's Standard of Good Practice (SOGP). It is more best
practice-based as it comes from ISF's industry experiences.
Other frameworks such as COBIT and ITIL touch on security issues, but are mainly geared toward creating a
governance framework for information and IT more generally. COBIT has a companion framework Risk IT
dedicated to Information security.
There are a number of initiatives focused to the governance and organizational issues of securing information
systems having in mind that it is business and organizational problem, not only a technical problem:
• Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002 is a United States federal law enacted in 2002 that
recognized the importance of information security to the economic and national security interests of the United
States.[1] The act requires each federal agency to develop, document, and implement an agency-wide program to
provide information security for the information and information systems that support the operations and assets of
the agency, including those provided or managed by another agency, contractor, or other source.[1] [2]
• Governing for Enterprise Security Implementation Guide [3] of the Carnegie Mellon University Software
Engineering Institute CERT is designed to help business leaders implement an effective program to govern
information technology (IT) and information security. Our objective is to help you make well informed decisions
about many important components of GES such as adjusting organizational structure, designating roles and
responsibilities, allocating resources (including security investments), managing risks, measuring results, and
gauging the adequacy of security audits and reviews. The intent in elevating security to a governance-level
concern is to foster attentive, security-conscious leaders who are better positioned to protect an organization’s
digital assets, its operations, its market position, and its reputation.
Information security management system 2
• A Capability Maturity Model for system security engineering was standardized in ISO/IEC_21827.
• Information Security Management Maturity Model (known as ISM-cubed or ISM3) is another form of ISMS.
ISM3 builds on standards such as ISO 20000, ISO 9001, CMM, ISO/IEC 27001, and general information
governance and security concepts. ISM3 can be used as a template for an ISO 9001-compliant ISMS. While
ISO/IEC 27001 is controls based, ISM3 is process based and includes process metrics. ISM3 is a standard for
security management (how to achieve the organizations mission despite of errors, attacks and accidents with a
given budget). The difference between ISM3 and ISO/IEC 21827 is that ISM3 is focused on management, ISO
21287 on Engineering.
External links
• Information Security Management Maturity Model (ISM3) (http://www.ism3.com)
• sse-cmm ("open source" standard) (http://www.sse-cmm.org/index.html)
Article Sources and Contributors 4
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