Gathering evidence for your ISO 27001 certification audit can be a major challenge for several reasons. For one, the controls you currently have in place might not generate evidence in an acceptable format, i.e., with time stamps. Even if your controls do generate evidence, finding it might be like looking for a needle in a haystack. It might not be properly labeled or stored in a separate system, like in a specific hard drive, Google Drive, or as an email attachment.

All of these challenges often lead to a mad scramble in the days leading up to your audit as your team tries to gather the required evidence and organize it in a way that your auditor can assess. If an external auditor finds that certain evidence is missing or it’s not what they’d requested, it can result in a lot of needless back and forth with the auditor to provide additional evidence or answer technical questions.

Automate the ISO 27001 evidence collection process

A security, privacy, and compliance automation platform like Secureframe makes the entire process of preparing for and completing a security audit significantly faster and easier. Through our suite of 100+ integrations, Secureframe automatically pulls evidence throughout the year for seamless submission to your auditor and other stakeholders. Easily upload and classify any additional evidence to the Data Room for easy export and sharing with your auditor.

Automating evidence collection not only cuts down on the risk of manual errors but also allows your team to shift their focus away from tedious, repetitive tasks to focus on higher priorities with a greater business impact.

Regardless of the specific compliance solution you choose, look for a platform that has these key capabilities:

• Map evidence to multiple frameworks. The ISO 27001 standard shares a lot of similarities with other popular frameworks including SOC 2. By mapping control requirements, you can easily see which requirements overlap and use the same evidence to fulfill multiple compliance requirements.
• Assign tasks and control owners. Your compliance tool should allow you to assign specific individuals or teams to internal controls.  
• Automatically notify you of non-conformities. Having a tool that continuously monitors your systems and automatically alerts you to any non-conformities can maintain continuous compliance and keep your security posture strong.

Download: ISO 27001 evidence collection list

Be fully prepared for your audit by collecting and organizing the evidence you’ll need to get certified. With this spreadsheet, you’ll be able to cross-reference a list of ISO 27001 controls and the required evidence and keep hundreds of documents organized and accessible for your auditor.