ISO 27001 A.5.6: security communities, explained for startups

A.5.6 Contact with special interest groups

You stay in touch with security communities that keep you current on threats and fixes. What proves it: the security groups, forums or advisory services you follow, and who follows them.

A certification auditor samples memberships or subscriptions to security groups and advisories. A file that usually does the job: subscription confirmations for your providers' security advisories, or membership of an industry information sharing group.

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.5.6 walks you through it in this order.

1. Subscribe to the security advisories for your main providers and tools.
2. Join one relevant community, such as an industry information sharing group.
3. Name who reads them and how important news reaches the team.

The free ISO 27001 readiness assessment asks one question that evidences it:

• Do you keep current contacts for the authorities and security groups you would need in an incident?

Policies, connectors and the SOC 2 overlap

In the ISO 27001 policy pack, the Information Security Policy covers A.5.6. 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 criterion that cover this ground: CC2.3, external communication.

Organizational controls

A.5.6 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.5.3, segregation of duties
• A.5.4, what managers must enforce
• A.5.5, contact with authorities
• A.5.7, threat intelligence
• A.5.8, security in projects
• A.5.9, asset inventory

Before it: A.5.5, contact with authorities. After it: A.5.7, threat intelligence. Every control, by theme, is on the Annex A controls page.