ISO 27001 A.5.4: what managers must enforce, explained for startups
What A.5.4 asks of a small company, and what an auditor samples.
Managers require everyone to follow the security policies and support them in doing so. Publishing the rules is not enough; managers reinforce them in daily work.
Why it exists: to have managers hold their teams to the security rules.
A.5.4 Management responsibilities
Managers expect their teams to follow the security rules and back them up. What proves it: a record that management requires staff to follow the security policies, such as a leadership message or an onboarding requirement.
A certification auditor samples management communications that require staff to follow the policies. A file that usually does the job: an email or all-hands note from leadership asking staff to follow the security policies, or an onboarding checklist that requires policy sign-off.
How to put it in place
Each step leaves a record, and the record is what the auditor samples rather than the step itself. Inside Polara, the control card for A.5.4 walks you through it in this order.
- Have leadership send a short message that following the security policies is part of everyone's job.
- Add policy sign-off to onboarding and to yearly reviews.
- Keep the message and the checklist.
The free ISO 27001 readiness assessment asks one question that evidences it:
- Has leadership approved your information security policy, scope and objectives in writing in the last 12 months?
Policies, connectors and the SOC 2 overlap
In the ISO 27001 policy pack, the Information Security Policy covers A.5.4. An auditor reads the policy for the rule, then samples the records to see the rule was followed.
The same evidence counts toward SOC 2. The Trust Services criteria that cover this ground: CC1.1, integrity and ethics and CC1.5, accountability.
Organizational controls
A.5.4 is one of the 37 organizational controls in Annex A. How the company runs security: policies, roles, suppliers, incidents, continuity and legal duties. Most of these are written decisions and the records that show you follow them.
Nearby controls in the same theme:
- A.5.1, security policies
- A.5.2, security roles
- A.5.3, segregation of duties
- A.5.5, contact with authorities
- A.5.6, security communities
- A.5.7, threat intelligence
Before it: A.5.3, segregation of duties. After it: A.5.5, contact with authorities. Every control, by theme, is on the Annex A controls page.
Questions
What does ISO 27001 A.5.4 require?
What evidence does an auditor want for A.5.4?
Get ready for ISO 27001 certification.
The readiness assessment is free, with no payment and no card. ISO 27001 is part of Constellation, at $10,800 a year: everything in Orbit plus the management system, the policies, the evidence and the management review for ISO 27001, and your SOC 2 Type 2 audit is included in every contract year. You contract the certification body directly.
The internal audit is priced separately: Polara arranges it with an independent internal auditor from our partner network who works in the platform, and quotes it for your company.
Take the free assessmentPolara Labs is not a certification body. Certification audits are performed by independent accredited certification bodies.