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Learning From Information Security Incidents

15/09/2025

Author: Stuart Barker | ISO 27001 Expert and Thought Leader

ISO 27001 Learning from information security incidents is the process of reviewing and analysing what happened during a security breach or event to understand its causes and consequences. The goal is to improve an organisation’s defences and prevent similar problems in the future. It’s about turning a negative event into a positive learning experience.

Examples

An organisation has a data breach where customer information is stolen. After the incident is contained, the security team holds a meeting to discuss what went wrong. They might find that the breach happened because an employee clicked on a phishing email. They then decide to create better training programs about phishing for all employees. This is an example of learning from an incident.

Context

Learning from incidents is a key part of information security management. It helps organisations to be more resilient. By studying past mistakes, a company can fix weaknesses in its systems, improve its security policies, and train its staff better. This makes the company safer from future attacks. It’s a cycle of action, review, and improvement.

Relevant ISO 27001 Controls

The following controls from the ISO/IEC 27001:2022 standard are related to Learning From Information Security Incidents:

About the author

Stuart Barker is an information security practitioner of over 30 years. He holds an MSc in Software and Systems Security and an undergraduate degree in Software Engineering. He is an ISO 27001 expert and thought leader holding both ISO 27001 Lead Implementer and ISO 27001 Lead Auditor qualifications. In 2010 he started his first cyber security consulting business that he sold in 2018. He worked for over a decade for GE, leading a data governance team across Europe and since then has gone on to deliver hundreds of client engagements and audits.

He regularly mentors and trains professionals on information security and runs a successful ISO 27001 YouTube channel where he shows people how they can implement ISO 27001 themselves. He is passionate that knowledge should not be hoarded and brought to market the first of its kind online ISO 27001 store for all the tools and templates people need when they want to do it themselves.

In his personal life he is an active and a hobbyist kickboxer.

His specialisms are ISO 27001 and SOC 2 and his niche is start up and early stage business.