ISO 27001 ISMS Skill

ISO 27001 certifies a system (the ISMS), not a checklist — auditors check that you scoped it, assessed risk, and can justify which Annex A controls you applied or excluded (the Statement of Applicability). This skill builds that backbone: scope, risk treatment, and a defensible SoA, so certification is a documented management system rather than a scramble.

Required Inputs

Ask for these only if they aren't already provided:

• ISMS scope — the products, locations, and information assets in scope (and what's deliberately out).
• Context & interested parties — the business, its regulatory/customer security obligations, and key risks.
• Risk approach — how you identify, assess, and treat information-security risk (the SoA flows from the risk assessment, not the other way round).
• Current controls — what's already implemented across the Annex A domains.

Output Format

ISO 27001 ISMS: [organisation]

1. Scope statement — the boundary of the ISMS: assets, locations, exclusions and why.

2. Context & risk — interested parties and their requirements; the risk assessment method and risk acceptance criteria.

3. Statement of Applicability (SoA) — the heart of it: each Annex A control, applicable or not, status, and justification:

(Excluding a control is fine — excluding it without a justification is an audit finding.)

4. Risk treatment plan — the top risks, the treatment (mitigate/accept/transfer/avoid), and the controls that address each.

5. Implementation roadmap — prioritised: mandatory clauses 4–10 (management system) first, then the highest-risk Annex A gaps, with owners and dates.

Programmatic Helper

scripts/soa_coverage.py (stdlib only) scores SoA coverage and flags controls excluded without a justification (the classic finding):

# soa.json: [{"control":"A.5.1","applicable":true,"status":"met|partial|gap","justification":"..."}, ...]
python3 scripts/soa_coverage.py soa.json
python3 scripts/soa_coverage.py soa.json --json

Quality Checks

• [ ] The ISMS scope is explicit, including deliberate exclusions
• [ ] The SoA covers every Annex A control with an applicable/excluded decision
• [ ] Every excluded control carries a justification (the most common audit finding)
• [ ] The SoA traces to the risk assessment — controls exist to treat identified risks, not for show
• [ ] Mandatory management-system clauses (4–10) are addressed, not just the Annex A controls

Anti-Patterns

• [ ] Do not exclude a control without a written justification — silent exclusions are audit findings
• [ ] Do not build the SoA before the risk assessment — applicability is derived from risk, not guessed
• [ ] Do not treat Annex A as the whole standard — clauses 4–10 (the management system) are mandatory and where many fail
• [ ] Do not mark controls "implemented" without evidence of operation — certification audits sample evidence
• [ ] Do not present this as certification — only an accredited body certifies; this prepares the ISMS

Based On

ISO/IEC 27001 (ISMS clauses 4–10) and Annex A control set + the Statement of Applicability requirement.