Implementing ISO 27001 Annex A 5.6 (Contact with Special Interest Groups) is a proactive information security control that requires organisations to maintain active communication channels with specialist security forums, professional associations, and threat intelligence communities. This Primary Implementation Requirement ensures early warning of emerging vulnerabilities and access to expert guidance, delivering the Business Benefit of accelerated incident response, reduced attack surface, and continuous alignment with industry best practices.
ISO 27001 Annex A 5.6 Contact with Special Interest Groups Implementation Checklist
Use this implementation checklist to achieve compliance with ISO 27001 Annex A 5.6. This control ensures your organisation isn’t operating in a vacuum by maintaining active connections with security communities for threat intelligence and best practice sharing.
1. Define Your Intelligence Needs
Control Requirement: The organisation must maintain contact with special interest groups to receive relevant security information.
Required Implementation Step: create a simple scope document defining what “intelligence” you actually need (e.g., “We need AWS vulnerability alerts and Fintech fraud updates”).
Minimum Requirement: A single statement in your policy defining the types of external information relevant to your business risks.
2. Identify Professional Bodies
Control Requirement: Participation in professional associations is required to stay current with industry standards.
Required Implementation Step: List the professional memberships held by your team (e.g., ISACA, ISSA, IAPP) that provide access to security journals and conferences.
Minimum Requirement: Identify at least one professional security body your team follows or belongs to.
3. Identify Technical Forums
Control Requirement: Access to specialist security information and early warnings.
Required Implementation Step: specific links to the technical forums your developers or engineers use (e.g., OWASP, Reddit r/netsec, vendor community forums).
Minimum Requirement: A list of 2-3 technical sources where your engineering team checks for vulnerability discussions.
4. Identify National CERTs
Control Requirement: Connection with national advisory bodies for broad threat intelligence.
Required Implementation Step: Sign up for the email newsletter of your national CERT (e.g., NCSC in the UK, CISA in the USA, CERT-EU in Europe).
Minimum Requirement: Proof of subscription (confirmation email) to at least one national government cyber security alert feed.
5. Subscribe to Vendor Security Bulletins
Control Requirement: Timely information about technical vulnerabilities in used products.
Required Implementation Step: Configure email alerts for the “Security Advisories” of your top 3 critical vendors (e.g., Microsoft MSRC, AWS Security, Salesforce Trust).
Minimum Requirement: You must have a direct feed of security updates for your primary operating system and cloud provider.
6. Assign Specific Internal Owners
Control Requirement: Information must be reviewed and acted upon.
Required Implementation Step: Update your register to include an “Owner” column, assigning a specific person to read the alerts from each group (e.g., “Network Engineer owns Cisco Alerts”).
Minimum Requirement: Every group on your list must have a named internal person responsible for it; no “orphan” subscriptions.
7. Create a Special Interest Group Register
Control Requirement: Documentation of the contacts maintained.
Required Implementation Step: Create a “Special Interest Groups Register” (spreadsheet or document) listing Group Name, URL, Type, and Owner.
Minimum Requirement: A simple table listing the external groups you rely on for security information.
8. Establish a Communication Feedback Loop
Control Requirement: Intelligence must be communicated to relevant personnel.
Required Implementation Step: Create a dedicated channel (e.g., Slack #security-news, Teams channel) where owners post relevant findings for the wider team.
Minimum Requirement: Evidence of one piece of external intelligence being shared internally (e.g., a forwarded email or chat message).
9. Document Action Taken on Intelligence
Control Requirement: Information received must be used to improve information security.
Required Implementation Step: Link an external alert to an internal action (e.g., “We patched Server X because of the alert from CISA”).
Minimum Requirement: One ticket or changelog entry referencing an external source as the reason for the change.
10. Review Membership Value Annually
Control Requirement: Contacts must be maintained and relevant.
Required Implementation Step: Schedule a calendar event once a year to review the list, removing inactive groups and adding new relevant ones.
Minimum Requirement: A “Date Reviewed” column in your register updated within the last 12 months.
ISO 27001 Annex A 5.6 SaaS / GRC Platform Implementation Failure Checklist
| Control Requirement | The “Checkbox Compliance” Trap | The Reality Check |
|---|---|---|
| Relevant Contacts | Using the GRC tool’s default list of 50+ global security groups that nobody in your company has ever heard of. | If you list “CERT-Japan” but operate only in London, the auditor knows you are faking it. You need a curated, relevant list. |
| Active Participation | Uploading a receipt of your ISACA membership fee as “proof” of compliance. | Paying a fee isn’t “contact.” Auditors want to see that you actually consume the content (e.g., download logs, webinar attendance). |
| Information Sharing | The tool sucks in RSS feeds into a dashboard widget that no one ever looks at. | If the intelligence sits in a dashboard silo, it’s useless. It needs to be where the devs work (Slack/Jira), not in a compliance tool. |
| Ownership | The “Compliance Officer” is listed as the owner for every single technical feed. | A Compliance Officer won’t understand a kernel vulnerability alert. Technical feeds need technical owners (Devs/Ops). |
| Actionable Intelligence | Marking the control as “Compliant” because you receive emails. | Receiving emails is passive. Compliance requires action. Where is the evidence that an email led to a patch or a policy change? |
| Social Media | Listing “Twitter” or “LinkedIn” broadly as a source. | Too vague. You need to list the specific accounts or hashtags monitored and who is responsible for filtering the noise. |
| Dead Links | The GRC platform’s library links to forums that have been 404/inactive for years. | Tools often have stale data. You must manually verify that the forums you list are still active and relevant. |
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