Bagging an ISO 27001 certification can amplify your reputation, bring you new business, improve security status, and save you from regulatory penalties. But the checklist of items can seem never ending—a typical audit has ten management system clauses and an annexure stating 114 information security controls.

You can do-it-yourself and get certified. That’s certainly possible. But every step can be time-consuming and a behemoth of a task.  And this is precisely where an ISO 27001 consultant for getting ISO 27001 certified becomes a godsend.

Who are ISO 27001 consultants?

ISO 27001 consultants are experts who expedite the process of obtaining certification timely and efficiently by leveraging their specialised knowledge on ISMS implementation. ISO 27001 is an internationally recognized standard that defines best practices for a company’s information security management system (ISMS).

Some of their responsibilities include:

• Assist in creating and updating information security policies and procedures aligned with ISO 27001 criteria
• Ensure that these policies are customized to fit the organization’s specific requirements with the right technologies and automation platforms
• Provide clear instructions for managing information security in accordance with ISO 27001 standards

ISO 27001 consulting service

A good ISO consulting service helps a company build an effective information security strategy and, in turn, an ISMS. The consultants in these companies bring expertise and experience to the table, helping your company understand the complexities of ISO 27001 compliance.

Sprinto is a compliance automation platform that helps you achieve ISO 27001 certification along with other frameworks in a limited time and cost. Our compliance experts will consult you on the best possible ways to get ISO 27001 certification quickly with minimal effort.

Sprinto also has a wide network of auditors in its arsenal so that you can easily leverage the external audit, depending on your location. Most importantly, our consultants will work closely with your security team to ensure you remain compliant.

How does Sprinto play a role here?

• Automate high-effort tasks like policy documentation, evidence collection, and risk mapping, integrating 75+ popular tools to speed up certification
• Streamline control monitoring with intuitive dashboards and real-time notifications
• Automate evidence collection by integrating Sprinto with your tech stack and gathering evidence as compliance is achieved
• Stay compliant with continuous monitoring by identifying, predicting, and mitigating security risks 24/7

Roles and responsibilities of ISO 27001 consultants

Before you decide whether you should hire a consultant or not, you must know what roles and responsibilities of ISO 27001 consultants are against the backdrop of the ISO 27001 implementation guide.

Design, build and deploy your ISMS

The external consultant will help you define the scope, design, and implement your ISMS. With a working knowledge of the ISO standard, they will be able to tailor your information security management system to meet your security assessment and requirements as well as that of the framework.   

You must nonetheless allocate in-house resource(s) to work with the consultant. Since each business is unique and handles different types of data, your team’s involvement in the process will ensure the ISMS is built to protect the kind of service, product, or platform that’s specific to your organization. you have to protect before you build an ISMS. 

Creation of ISMS policy, procedures and documentation

As we mentioned earlier, ISO 27001 is heavy on documentation. It requires organizations to set up policies, and procedures, and deploy controls to mitigate data security risks to their ISMS. ISO Consultants typically help draft these policies and procedures in organizations. And thanks to their professional consultancy expertise, they can even help you tailor it to meet your organization’s specific needs. 

Policies on vulnerability management, cyber incident response, business continuity management, and vendor due diligence are some of the measures your cybersecurity consultants will draw up to bolster your security architecture while they implement an ISMS.

Conduct risk assessment and treatment

Risk assessment is an integral part of becoming ISO 27001 compliant. And ISO 27001 consultants play a crucial role in conducting internal risk assessments of your assets and systems. They help point out and identify the risks to the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of your information assets by assigning a probability of their likelihood and ranking their impact levels (high to low), in consultation with your team and management. They can also help conduct your vendor risk assessment. 

Having a consultant on board can help you identify the right risk treatment plan for the prioritized information risk for different assets (based on risk ranking). With the working knowledge of  Annex A of ISO 27001, which specifies 114 controls across 14 groups, a consultant can help you fasten and failproof your processes and documentation here. 

Consultants also help build your risk treatment plan document, which is intently reviewed during your certification audit.

You will, however, do well to remember that you can’t eliminate all your risks completely. Therefore, your consultant must also help you design a plan in case of a data breach, cybersecurity attack, or any other ‘risky eventuality.’ Your risk treatment plan must include a well-thought-out incident response to ensure business continuity.

Prepare your Statement of Applicability

The Statement of Applicability (SOA) is another critical document that a consultant helps you prepare for certification. For the uninitiated, SOA is a list of all of the controls from Annex A that apply to your organization, and contains the controls mapping vis-a-vis identified risks with justifications for the inclusion and exclusion of controls. 

Oversee & consult on your staff awareness and training programs

Consultants can also weigh in on your ISO 27001 security awareness training programs, and review if your programs are comprehensive and meet the ISO 27001 standard requirement. 

Requirement 7.2.2 of ISO 27001 states: “All employees of the organization and, where relevant, contractors and third-party users should receive appropriate awareness training and regular updates in organizational policies and procedures, as relevant for their job function.”

Conduct gap analysis and remediation

Once your ISMS is up and running, your ISO 27001 consultant will monitor and review it and conduct gap assessments and remediation based on the review results. They help ensure continual improvement to maintain the robustness of your ISMS.

Consultants also help collect evidence of compliance to the standard; your much-needed documents during ISO 27001 audit. 

Conduct internal audit and audit readiness assessment

Based on your hiring needs and contract, consultants can also conduct internal audits (a much-needed step in your ISO 27001 journey). Internal audits are like a reconnaissance before the external audit. Your consultant will look for gaps, non-conformities, and vulnerabilities, assess your ISMS performance, and review your documentation. Based on their findings, they will produce an internal audit report.

How much does an ISO 27001 consultant charge?

An ISO 27001 consultant can charge between $15,000 and $75,000 annually for what they do for you. This traditional approach is time-consuming and may take at least 12 to 18 months to complete.

The better approach would be to get an automation platform like Sprinto, which can help you with ISO 27001 certification, which you can get done within a fraction of the cost consultants charge.

To see this in action, see how Officebeacon achieved compliance maturity and breezed through the ISO 27001 audit using Sprinto.

What are the pros and cons of an ISO 27001 consultant?

Employing an ISO 27001 consultant has its own advantages and disadvantages. Some of the pros, such as faster compliance and long-term benefits, outweigh the cost and scope of services. Let’s dive deeper to understand:

Pros:

Expedite the compliance process

Hiring a consultant is no less than stepping on the accelerator pedal to reach the compliance stage faster. A work that takes 3-12 months when done by internal employees or contractors is essentially completed in days.

Your ISMS is operative and well-integrated, risk areas have been taken care of, documentation is on-point and everything is monitored.

Well-thought-out and labor-saving

Things can go haphazard and out of whack when you do not have the required know-how to carry out processes yourself.

An ISO 27001 consultant has a structured way of doing things. He has put in the reps and has a way with things. The systematized procedure saves you hundreds of hours of painful manual work.

An external perspective

If you decide to carry out the whole process internally, you may look at your systems and documents with a biased eye. You may even recycle some old documents that contradict the present guidelines.

However, an ISO 27001 consultant brings an impartial viewpoint to the organization and is better positioned for vulnerability and risk assessments.

Lay the foundation for prolonged security

Security is an unceasing concern. Once the consultant prepares you for the certification and promotes a security-focused culture, your only job is maintaining and managing the security systems.

This also does the groundwork for ensuring the long-term security of the company.

Cons:

Can be heavy on your pocket

You are paying an ISO 27001 consultant to take the load off your shoulders for all the expertise they bring and for speeding up the process to save you days. So it can cost you an arm and a leg (not literally).

The costs can start from $10,000 and can go as high as $40,000, depending upon the project and the scope of services.

Then, there are certification costs and some recurring costs for annual maintenance. If you do not want the compliance procedure to feel like a daylight robbery, set aside a budget for the same.

Sprinto Advantage

Sprinto can help you save costs by automating a lot of manual work in a fraction of the time a consultant charges.

The scope of services

The service package of ISO 27001 consultants is not always all-embracing. Their knowledge and prowess may be limited to a few areas and could restrict the scope of help they could extend to your organization.

Small organizations that pay through their nose for ISO 27001 consultancy services may reconsider hiring a consultant in such situations.

Sprinto advantage

With Sprinto, you’re not confined to the limited expertise of consultants in specific areas. Instead, you can access a wide range of tools and resources covering various aspects of ISO 27001 compliance. 

For example, Sprinto offers a continuous monitoring feature that helps you maintain your compliance status without any issues. 

Confidentiality issues

All your company’s sensitive information will be exposed to an outsider. A mistake in choosing a reliable consultant can turn into an uncalled-for peril. 

It is important to perform a background check on your consultants to rely on their credibility, expertise, and experience for confidentiality issues.

Sprinto advantage

With Sprinto, you avoid exposing sensitive company information to outsiders, preventing potential risks. All you need to do is upload your compliance evidence to the platform and then directly show it to your auditor. 

You don’t need to worry about unreliable consultants. Sprinto’s secure platform keeps your data safe, eliminating the need for frequent background checks.

List of ISO 27001 consultancy services:

A lot of ISO 27001 consultancy services help you achieve certification much faster. Here’s a list of some ISO 27001 consulting services that you can check out:

IT Governance USA

• The consultancy deals with ISO 27001, Cybersecurity, Data Privacy Laws and Penetration Testing
• The world’s first ISO 27001 project was led by them and it has served 600+ organizations so far.

Bridewell

• Bridewell provides a full set of cybersecurity services across ISO 27001. It also readily caters to the certification requirements of complex and highly regulated organizations
• The firm has 170+ specialists and has served 220+ clients.

CyberSecOp

• CyberSecOp provides a wide range of services that include cyber security management, incident response services, vulnerability assessments, and more.
• The consultancy follows a 4-phase implementation methodology for assessing, implementation, audit, and improvement. 

Pivot Point Security

• Pivot Point caters to the ISO 27001 certification needs of small and medium-sized businesses.
• It supports internal audit services and also promises Pivot Point security auditor on site

GISConsulting

• GISconsulting gives you a free security assessment first. It was named one of the top 10 cyber security companies by Silicon Valley Magazine in 2017
• You also get an option to combine ISO 27017 certification with ISO 27001.

But in case you’ve been wondering if this is the only way, fret not. We are coming to that.

Should you hire an ISO 27001 consultant or is there a better way?

If you have the budget to hire an ISO 27001 consultant, it can be a great investment to build a solid defense and increase your chances of getting a good certification. However, If you are a small organization and do not have the budget to hire a consultant, you can go for automation software.

However, If you are a small organization and do not have the necessary funds to hire a consultant, you can go for an automation software.

Automation software can give you the best of both worlds, which is DIY with a consultancy-like approach. This can automate defining ISMS scope, the documentation process, evidence collection, and more with handy features while being economical and time-saving.

Sprinto is one such automation software that you can count on. 100% of the things required for your ISO 27001 are on the platform in an easy-to-understand and implemented language. Even the non-technical stakeholders of your organization will be able to tick off their tasks easily.

Everything is automated, whether it is preparing the SOA report or positioning various checks, or even employee training. Our highly professional and responsive staff always has your back to educate you about the process and extend support.

All of this now costs less and has swifter implementation. For, Sprinto’s compliance engine enables seamless automation and eliminates unnecessary human intervention. Thus directly impacting the expenditure towards compliance.

Read about how Giift, a Singapore-based loyalty marketplace, completed the implementation phase in under 8 weeks with Sprinto and received ISO 27001 certification in just 4.

Expedite your ISO 27001 certification with Sprinto

Getting your organization ISO 27001 certified provides your customers a sense of trust and can go a long way in projecting maturity and starting sales conversations at a higher rung. 

Hiring a consultant can help streamline these processes and make tactical decisions. But what if you could have all of this without relying on an external resource? 

Choosing automation software like Sprinto can get you ISO 27001 compliance 10X quicker while saving you hours of manual work.

The fully automated evidence collection and well-streamlined to-dos make things easier. Our guided risk mitigation makes us the top choice of hundreds of customers.

Check out how Equalture achieved it’s ISO 27001 compliance with Sprinto

Want to have a taste of automation-first ISO 27001 compliance procedures? Book a demo with us.

FAQs

How can I become an ISO 27001 expert?

To become an ISO 27001 expert, you’ll first need an ISO 27001 certificate. You can choose to be a Lead Auditor or a Lead Implementer.

Both require you to take a 5-day course and pass an exam to get the certificate. Since this is something that’s learned practically, you’ll need work experience.

It is important to have IT knowledge or a background in information security.

Next, find a certification body that needs an auditor and get the required training. Lastly, you’ll need experience to qualify as an expert.

For example, to become a lead auditor you need to complete at least 3 ISMS audits.

What are the three pillars of ISO 27001?

The Three pillars of ISO 27001 are confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the organization’s information assets.

Confidentiality states that access to information should only be granted to authorized people when required. All sensitive information should otherwise be kept private.

Integrity calls for your data to be reliable and authenticated. It should also be accurate as per your knowledge. There shouldn’t be corrupted files or any kind of data tampering in this regard.

Availability means the right information should be available at any given point in time or whenever it must be utilized.

What is the average salary of an ISO 27001 consultant?

The average salary of an ISO 27001 consultant in the United States is $100000 per year. It can, however start from $70000 and can exceed $130000.