ISO27001 Toolkits Exposed

What is an ISO 27001 Toolkit?

An ISO 27001 toolkit is usually a set of templates that help you to fast track your ISO 27001 implementation. They should come mapped to the ISO 27001 standard, create your Information Security Management System and, where possible, be pre-populated with best practice.

The toolkits should include the mandatory ISO 27001 policies.

Why do people buy ISO 27001 toolkits?

We find that the vast majority of ISO 27001 toolkits that we sell are to information security practitioners like ourselves. But whether a professional or a business the usual reasons are

• To save time researching and writing them themselves
• To save money on consultants
• To fast track an implementation

Are ISO 27001 toolkits any good?

They can be. It really depends on where you get them from, who wrote them, how up to date they are, how often they are updated. At the end of the day they are tools.

If you want your garden to be landscaped, with a toolkit you will have the tools to do the job, but you will not have a landscaped garden.

What kinds of ISO 27001 toolkits are there?

ISO 27001 Toolkits fall into 2 categories. They are either

• A template pack of documents
• An on line portal

Lets explore both in a little more detail.

What is the best ISO 27001 Toolkit 2023?

The answer is simple. The High Table ISO 27001 Template Toolkit: Business Edition

It is so good, it even comes with a money back guarantee.

Now how many solutions can offer you that?

The best ISO 27001 toolkits – document template packs

When it comes to the best ISO 27001 toolkit the answer is going to be subjective. You could say that our best ISO 27001 toolkit recommendation is a little biased. And you would be correct but the bias is based on over 2 decades of experience in the field. For small business and professionals, we have no doubt that the best ISO 27001 toolkits are those that are document template packs. If we had to compose our list of top 10 ISO 27001 toolkits then over 80% would be document template packs.

An ISO 27001 template toolkit document pack is usually a pack of the required documents for an information security management system. This is our recommended and preferred solution. After over 25 years in information security, as a team, it is our opinion that document packs provided the greatest benefit with the least down sides. Let us explore why.

ISO 27001 Portals

A portal is a great way for complex organisation to manage their documentation. There is still a heavy reliance on staff to create the content of the documents and for expert help in making it all work but if management of your documents is a problem for you then portals could be the way to go.

There are several considerations for ISO 27001 toolkit portals. As a rule they are cloud based so you are going to want to check that they come with all of the required information certifications. As they are software based there will be on going license costs to consider. In addition it is likely that you will require training that often comes at an extra cost.

Getting data into and out of the system is going to be a key. So work hard to understand how staff are going to keep the information up to date. Are they entering it into the portal directly or are they uploading existing documents. When clients ask for documents or it comes to the time to be audited you need to know how easy it is to get the information out and what format will it be in. Can it be easily ported to the clients questionnaire tool or is there some extra steps and extra work involved.

Make sure to clarify who owns your data. It seems a strange question, but if you want to move to an alternate supplier or the portal goes out of business be sure you understand if and how you will get access to all your data that exists in the system.

Understanding your own processes and way of work is a vital step. Check that the portal and tool fully supports your way of working. Is it flexible enough to adapt to your demands or are you going to have to work the way the portal wants you to work. If you can make changes, are they free or are they a paid add on.

Comparison of ISO 27001 Toolkit Document Toolkit and Portal / Cloud Solutions

ISO 27001 Toolkit Templates Documents	ISO 27001 Portal / Cloud Software
Microsoft Office Documents so no software licenses needed	Portals are licensed to use the software, usually per user.
Microsoft Office Documents so no software training needed	Portals usually require you to be trained. At a cost.
Microsoft Office Documents so no ‘users’ to set up	Portals need users to be set up, maintained and adminstitered. You have better things to do.
Microsoft Office Documents so stored on your infrastructure, secured and controlled and owned by you.	Portals often do not have certifications for ISO 27001 or similar and it can be unclear on where the data is and what happens to it if you don’t want to use the portal anymore
Easy to maintain.	Complex to maintain due to user admin overhead, training.
Easy to share with potential customers and auditors who also use Microsoft Office documents.	Hard to share documents. Usually exported to Microsoft Office or PDF documents. Ironic right?
No third party security worries, no availability worries, no security worries, no where is my data stored worries.
Flexible and easy to configure	Requires code changes to configure tools. You have to work how the portal wants you to work.
Ideal for professionals that need flexibility and ease as well as small businesses that need to keep complexity and cost to a minimum.	Ideal for large organisations as a step up from a standard document management system.

ISO 27001 Toolkit FAQ