ISO 27001 Contact with Authorities
ISO 27001 contact with authorities is the requirement that organisations need to maintain contact with relevant authorities regarding security incidents, complaints, and vulnerabilities.
Key Takeaways
- ISO 27001 Annex A 5.5 requires organisations to establish and maintain easy contact with authorities for information security matters.
- Businesses must identify and list all relevant authorities, such as regulators and law enforcement, and create a clear process for communication.
- Having a documented list of contacts and communication procedures is crucial for demonstrating compliance and passing a security audit.
Table of contents
- ISO 27001 Contact with Authorities
- Key Takeaways
- What is ISO 27001 Annex A 5.5?
- Implementation Guide
- How to identify the authorities you need to contact
- How to implement ISO 27001 Annex A 5.5 in regulated industries
- How to contact authorities
- How to document contact with authorities
- Examples of authorities to contact
- ISO 27001 Annex A 5.4 Explained: A Complete Guide
- How to comply
- How to pass the ISO 27001 Annex A 5.5 audit
- Top 3 ISO 27001 Annex A 5.5 Mistakes and How to Fix Them
- How can an ISO 27001 Toolkit help with ISO 27001 Annex A 5.5?
- ISO 27001 Annex A 5.5 Contact With Authorities FAQ
- Related ISO 27001 Controls
- Further Reading
- ISO 27001 Controls and Attribute Values
What is ISO 27001 Annex A 5.5?
ISO 27001 Annex A 5.5 Contact with Authorities is an ISO 27001 control that requires an organisation to establish and maintain contact with authorities that are relevant to them.
Purpose
The purpose of ISO 27001 Annex A 5.5 is to ensure the appropriate flow of information takes place with respect to information security between the organisation and relevant legal, regulatory and supervisory authorities.
Definition
ISO 27001 defines ISO 27001 Annex A 5.5 as
The organisation should establish and maintain contact with relevant authorities.
ISO 27001 Annex A 5.5 Contact with Authorities
Implementation Guide
You are going to have to ensure that:
- you identify and document what authorities apply to you
- in what circumstances you would contact them
- how information security incidents should be reported if relevant
- understand what expectations these authorities have, if any
- include relevant contact steps in your incident management processes
- include relevant contact steps in your business continuity plan and disaster recovery processes
People often scratch their heads at this one but an easy win is the contact with your data protection regulator that is likely mandated in law. In addition you can consider the likes of utility companies for power and water, health and safety if relevant, fire departments for business continuity and incident management, perhaps your telecoms provider for routing if lines go down.
How to identify the authorities you need to contact
You are going to identify the authorities that you might need to make contact with. If you are in a regulated industry that may be relatively straightforward as there may be regulatory bodies that you might need to make contact with.
If you’re within the European union and GDPR applies to you then you may need to register with your local data protection authority, for example in the UK you have to register with the Information Commissioner’s Office.
The next on the list, is going to be things like the support utilities such as water and power. These are usually things that you’ve identified as part of your Business Continuity management process or you’ve identified as part of your Incident Management process.
Finally, you’ve law enforcement agencies.
How to implement ISO 27001 Annex A 5.5 in regulated industries
How to contact authorities
When it comes to how you’re going to contact them you’re just going to follow whatever process they’ve got. To document that you record their contact process.
It is unlikely for the majority of organisations that you have a special one to one relationship where you have your own bespoke process but in terms of the requirement of the standard you’re going to identify those authorities that you need to make contact with and how you contact them.
How to document contact with authorities
You’re going to list out the authorities that you may need to contact and record their contact details. You may record that how you contact them is via the processes that they have in place. This will be available to your incident management process and part of that process.
Examples of authorities to contact
Examples of authorities that you may need to contact
- Data protection regulator
- Industry Regulatory Bodies
- Government Agencies
- Law Enforcement Agencies
- Power Companies
- Telecoms Companies
- Utility Companies
- Emergency Services
ISO 27001 Annex A 5.4 Explained: A Complete Guide
In the video ISO 27001 Annex A 5.5 Contact With Authorities Explained I show you how to implement it and how to pass the audit.
How to comply
To comply with ISO 27001 Annex A 5.5 you are going to implement the ‘how’ to the ‘what’ the control is expecting. In short measure you are going to
- List the relevant authorities and document your who, how and when you will contact authorities
How to pass the ISO 27001 Annex A 5.5 audit
To pass an audit of ISO 27001 Annex A 5.5 Contact with Authorities you are going to make sure have listed and document the authorities that you contact and show evidence that you contacted them.
What an auditor looks for
The audit is going to check a number of areas for compliance with ISO 27001 Annex A 5.5 Contact with Authorities. Lets go through them:
1. That you have a list of authorities you would contact
What this means is that you need to show that you have a list of authorities that you have considered and are in scope for you.
2. That you have a process to contact them
The process may be straightforward. Many authorities have pre defined ways in which you contact them. Just write them down.
3. That you have contacted authorities
There is not an expectation that you have contacted everyone on your list. It just wont be relevant. But some of those contacts will be mandated in law or regulation, and for those, you should have evidence the contact took place. A simple example would be registering with the data protection supervisory body.
Top 3 ISO 27001 Annex A 5.5 Mistakes and How to Fix Them
In my experience, the top 3 mistakes people make for ISO 27001 Annex A 5.5 Contact with Authorities are:
1. You didn’t register with the Data Protection registrar
Often a legal requirement, make sure you have registered as a data controller or data processor, which ever applies, with the relevant bodies. They will check.
2. You don’t have a list of relevant authorities
You thought it was obvious so didn’t write it down. Wrong. Write it down to show you considered it.
3. Your document and version control is wrong
Keeping your document version control up to date, making sure that version numbers match where used, having a review evidenced in the last 12 months, having documents that have no comments in are all good practices.
How can an ISO 27001 Toolkit help with ISO 27001 Annex A 5.5?
The ISO 27001 toolkit provides the templates and training for ISO 27001 annex a 5.5.
ISO 27001 Annex A 5.5 Contact With Authorities FAQ
There are templates for ISO 27001 Annex A 5.5 located in the ISO 27001 Toolkit.
Some would argue that ISO 27001 Annex A 5.5 Contact with Authorities is not that important as it is glaringly obvious. You would contact the fire department if you had a fire. You would contact the police if a crime was committed. I am not here to disagree with you. But the standard wants these things documenting so document them.
The purpose of this control is to ensure appropriate flow of information takes place with respect to information security between the organisation and relevant legal, regulatory and supervisory authorities.
Yes. Clearly it is stating the bleeding obvious but this has never stopped the standard before it wont stop it now. They are explicitly required for ISO 27001.
ISO 27001 templates for ISO 27001 Annex A 5.5 are located in the ISO 27001 Toolkit.
ISO 27001 Annex A 5.5 is not hard. It is stating the bleeding obvious.
ISO 27001 Annex A 5.5 will take approximately 1 hour to complete if you are starting from nothing and doing it yourself.
The cost of ISO 27001 Annex A 5.5 will depend how you go about it. If you do it yourself it will be free but will take you about 1 hour so the cost is lost opportunity cost as you tie up resource doing something that can easily be downloaded.
Examples of authorities are
Utility companies
Telecoms Companies
The Police
The Fire Department
Data Protection Supervising Bodies
As a rule you follow their prescribed process for contacting them. Anything else would be madness.
Yes.
Related ISO 27001 Controls
ISO 27001 Clause 5.3 Organisational Roles, Responsibilities and Authorities
Further Reading
The complete guide to ISO/IEC 27002:2022
Business Continuity Plan Template
ISO 27001 Controls Ultimate Guide
ISO 27001 Controls and Attribute Values
| Control type | Information security properties | Cybersecurity concepts | Operational capabilities | Security domains |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Preventive | Confidentiality | Identify | Governance | Defence |
| Corrective | Integrity | Protect | Resilience | |
| Availability | Respond | |||
| Recover |
