ISO 27001 A.5.7: threat intelligence, explained for startups
What A.5.7 asks of a small company, and what an auditor samples.
Gather and make sense of information about the threats aimed at organizations like yours. Turn that intel into concrete defensive actions instead of letting it sit unused.
Why it exists: to learn about threats to companies like it and act before they cause harm.
A.5.7 Threat intelligence
You gather news about threats to companies like yours and act on it. What proves it: the threat sources you follow, who reviews them, and an example of something you changed because of them.
A certification auditor samples threat sources followed and examples of actions taken. A file that usually does the job: a ticket raised from a provider security advisory with the fix applied, or a monthly threat review note.
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.5.7 walks you through it in this order.
- Pick two or three sources, for example your cloud provider's security bulletins and a national cyber security agency feed.
- Have one person review them on a set schedule.
- Record when a threat leads to an action, such as a patch or a rule change.
The free ISO 27001 readiness assessment asks one question that evidences it:
- How do you learn about new threats that affect your systems?
Policies, connectors and the SOC 2 overlap
In the ISO 27001 policy pack, the Risk Assessment and Treatment Policy covers A.5.7. 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: CC3.2, risk identification and CC7.1, vulnerability monitoring.
Organizational controls
A.5.7 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.5.4, what managers must enforce
- A.5.5, contact with authorities
- A.5.6, security communities
- A.5.8, security in projects
- A.5.9, asset inventory
- A.5.10, acceptable use
Before it: A.5.6, security communities. After it: A.5.8, security in projects. Every control, by theme, is on the Annex A controls page.
Questions
What does ISO 27001 A.5.7 require?
What evidence does an auditor want for A.5.7?
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.