ISO 27001 Toolkit

An ISO 27001 toolkit is a collection of resources and templates that help businesses implement and manage an information security management system (ISMS) in line with the ISO/IEC 27001 standard. It contains documents, policies, procedures, and checklists that can be customised to fit individual business needs. The ISO 2700 toolkit aims to simplify the process of meeting ISO 27001 certification requirements and achieving compliance.

The best examples of an ISO 27001 toolkit is the High Table ISO 27001 Toolkit: Business Edition. It is the fastest selling ISO 27001 toolkit designed to be lightweight, quick, simple and easy to implement for small business.

The top 10 benefits of using an ISO 27001 toolkit are:

Get ISO 27001 certified: A toolkit can help you to get certified to ISO 27001. This certification can demonstrate to your customers, partners, and regulators that you are committed to protecting your information assets.

Save time and money: A toolkit can provide you with pre-written templates and documents that you can customise to meet your specific needs. This can save you a significant amount of time and money that would otherwise be spent on developing these documents from scratch.

Meet customer requirements: Many industries have specific information security requirements that you must meet. A toolkit can help you to ensure that you are meeting these requirements.
Improve chances of success: A toolkit can provide you with guidance and support throughout the implementation process. This can help you to avoid common pitfalls and increase your chances of successfully implementing an ISMS.

Stay up-to-date: A toolkit can be updated to reflect the latest changes to the ISO 27001 standard. This can help you to ensure that your ISMS is always compliant with the latest standards.

Get guidance and support: A toolkit can provide you with guidance and support throughout the implementation process. This can help you to avoid making common mistakes and to ensure that your ISMS is implemented correctly.
Improved compliance: Organisations that are ISO 27001 certified are demonstrating to their customers, partners, and regulators that they are committed to protecting their information assets. This can give you a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

Increased efficiency: An ISO 27001 toolkit can help you to improve the efficiency of your information security processes. This is because the toolkit provides a standardised approach to managing information security, which can help to eliminate duplication of effort and improve communication between different departments.

Enhanced risk management: An ISO 27001 toolkit can help you to improve your risk management practices. This is because the toolkit provides a systematic approach to identifying, assessing, and mitigating information security risks.

Gain a competitive advantage: ISO 27001 certification can give you a competitive advantage in the marketplace. This is because certification demonstrates to customers and partners that you are committed to protecting your information assets.

Reduced risk of security breaches: By implementing an ISMS in accordance with ISO 27001, you can significantly reduce the risk of security breaches. This is because the standard provides a comprehensive framework for managing information security risks.

Increased confidence: An ISO 27001 certification can give employees, customers, and partners greater confidence in your ability to protect your information assets. This can lead to increased productivity, improved customer satisfaction, and reduced costs.

An ISO 27001 toolkit can vary in cost from a free ISO 27001 toolkit to a paid for ISO 27001 toolkit. Hidden costs often include annual license fees, costs for training, costs to speak to a consultant, upgrade costs and implementation costs. The High Table ISO 27001 toolkit costs £597. It is the lowest cost ISO 27001 toolkit on the market. It includes a free 1-to-1 consultation and 40 hours a year free consulting. It is a one time payment and includes all future updates and changes to the standard.

There are two types of ISO 27001 toolkit available
1. Free toolkits: usually free to download, include only limited resources, do not offer support, not updated as often, no certification services.
2. Commercial toolkits: cost to download, include a wide range of resources including templates, documents, processes, checklist, how to guides, videos, training materials. Offer support. They are updated regularly to reflect any changes to the standard. Typically offer certification services.

The features of the toolkit: The toolkit should include the resources you need to implement and maintain an information security management system (ISMS). These include templates, policies, documents, procedures, checklists, how to and implementation guides, videos, training materials and support from an ISO 27001 expert.

Your level of experience with ISO 27001: If you are new to ISO 27001 it is best to choose a toolkit that includes real world support from an ISO 27001 expert at no extra cost as well as training materials and videos.

The level of support offered by the toolkit provider: The toolkit provider should offer support to help you implement and maintain your information security management system, such as a free consultation and free weekly question and answer sessions.

Your budget: Commercial toolkits can be expensive, so it is important to choose a toolkit that fits within your budget.

The reputation of the toolkit provider: The toolkit provider should have a good reputation and be experienced in providing ISO 27001 toolkits. Read reviews and get feedback. If in doubt ask for testimonials.

The experience of the toolkit author: The toolkit author should be someone you can identify and have real world experience of delivering ISO 27001 certifications over a minimum of 5 years.

The type of toolkit: There are two main types of ISO 27001 toolkits. Those are commercial toolkits and free toolkits. Commercial toolkits typically include a wider range of resources than free toolkits, come with more support and are updated more regularly.

The updates: Some toolkits are updated on a regular basis to reflect changes to the ISO 27001 standard. This is important if you want to ensure that your toolkit is always up-to-date and your information security management system is meeting the latest certification requirements.

The certification: Some commercial toolkits offer certification services. This can be helpful if you are looking to get certified to ISO 27001.

A toolkit can fast track your information security management system (ISMS) based on best practice. If you are starting from nothing it will give you everything you need and if you have something in place already it will be a bench mark of best practice against which you can assess yourself and approve areas that need improvement. The toolkit will be the most cost effective way to improve the ISMS being of average thirty times cheaper than engaging directly with a consultant. Indeed many consultants actually use ISO 27001 toolkits when they engage with you. As the toolkit is designed to meet the requirements of the ISO 27001 standard it will provide you with a management system that is fully compliant as well as being certification ready. All of this will be achieved by removing the guess work that can be involved in going it alone and the months of research required to understand and meet the requriements. If the toolkit provides support from and ISO 27001 expert, which it should, this is an incredibly cost efficient way to access what is otherwise a very costly resource.

There are several distinct phases to complying with the ISO 27001 standard. For each of the following phases a toolkit can specifically improve your compliance.

Gap Analysis: the gap analysis phase is to understand where you are against the standard and where your gaps are so that you can address them. The toolkit should provide with you a tool to conduct a gap analysis as well as the resources to assess those gaps and create a remediation plan. A toolkit should provide detailed guides on each of the ISO 27001 clauses and each of the annex A controls to allow you to easily asses what is needed.

Build: the build phase is where the toolkit comes into its own. Building a management system from scratch can be confusing and take many months to complete but with a toolkit you will have a pre built and ready to go management system that is based on best practice and fully meets the requirements of the ISO 27001 standard. You will have all of the required policies, documents, templates, processes and procedures as well as the support resources such as how to and implementation guides, videos and access to a real ISO 27001 expert.

Implement: implementation is taking what you have built and applying it to your organisation. With a toolkit this will be a seamless process as you are guided step by step through the process with support on hand to help if you have questions. At the end of this phase you are ISO 27001 certification ready.

Audit: the audit phase is actually an ongoing process but one that is simple and straightforward to complete. To be compliant with the standard you are required to conduct regular internal audits. The most significant step is to complete one complete internal audit before going for your certification. A toolkit will provide you all the tools and knowledge that you require to quickly and efficiently conduct the required audits as well as the reports so that you can communication the results.

Certification: if you choose to go for certification then a toolkit will provide you with details on how to take the certification audit and what to expect. It is unlikely you have been through this process before and complying can be very daunting indeed. Taking guidance and advice from someone who has done it before, many times, can be reassuring and ensure you done fall foul of the common gotchas.

Continual Improvement: complying with ISO 27001 is not a one and done. When you certify, for many, this is just the start of the process. Complying with the standard requires a process of ongoing continual improvement. The toolkit will show you how and give you the resources you need so you can comply and pass those on going annual certification audits.

How to implement an ISO 27001 toolkit follows this simple 4 step process:

1. Purchase the ISO 27001 toolkit
2. Brand the toolkit
3. Configure the templates to meet your needs
4. Take your ISO 27001 certification audit

The most common challenge of using an ISO 27001 toolkit is choosing the wrong toolkit for your needs. Usually this is as a result of not understanding what will be required and making a decision purely on cost. Free ISO 27001 toolkits are usually free for a reason and come with limited resources, limited support, limited updates and provide on a best endeavours basis. For many this will not be enough and not provide what is required. The lack of support is the biggest challenge of choosing a free toolkit. Whilst not all toolkits are equal, commercial toolkits share common characteristics such as quality of deliverables, frequency of updates and a level of support included.

To overcome the challenges of using an ISO 27001 toolkit is important to understand what your level of experience is and what your requirements are. A tool is just a tool but consider things like
How much support will you require and what does it provide?
How much support is free and if not, what is the cost to get help?
Are updates included or do I have to buy them?
Are there ongoing costs or is it a one time cost?
Are there good, recent reviews, so I can see what people think?
If you are technical and have knowledge then included support will be less important to you. Take the first step to understand what exactly you need the toolkit to do and give you and research to make sure that it does. Do not just go for free assuming it will solve all your problems.

The key features of a good ISO 27001 toolkit are:
It is a one time purchase
It includes all updates to the standard
It includes all new templates
It includes a free 1-to-1 consultation with and ISO 27001 expert
It includes free weekly Question and Answer sessions
It fully meets the requirements of the ISO 27001:2022 standard
It has good reviews from real people

Work out what you need from the toolkit and do your research. The requirements on a toolkit are more than its cost, and you should consider if the features that it offers are the features that you need. Common features that are different between toolkits are the level of support that they include as well as the ability to provide ISO 27001 certification. As part of your research read the reviews, watch the videos – if they have them, and get a feel for the company and the author of the toolkit. Where you can review sample documents. An ISO 27001 toolkit is a low cost low risk option but it is better to get it right the first time if possible.

To stay up-to-date with the developments in the toolkits we would advise to sign up to the vendors newsletter. If you unsubscribe from their mailing lists you won’t get the latest updates and insights. As an alternative to periodically visit the vendors toolkit website and look for changes and updates.

The High Table ISO 27001 toolkit includes a free 1-to-1 session with an ISO 27001 expert as well as weekly Q&A calls all included in the price. Their website also has a comprehensive set of guides on how to implement ISO 27001 and Annex A on a clause-by-clause basis as well as control-by-control. These guides show you exactly what you need to do, how to implement, how to pass the audit and the common gotchas that people make so you can avoid them. Additional support is provided with their unique Coached approach where they coach you step-by-step through a structured 6 step process at the end of which you will have a fully compliant and fully functioning information security management system (ISMS).

The best ISO 27001 toolkit in 2023 is the High Table ISO 27001 Toolkit: Business Edition

The top 10 ISO 27001 toolkits are:

1. High Table ISO 27001 Toolkit: Business Edition
2. High Table ISO 27001 Toolkit: Consultant Edition
3. ISO-Docs
4. Certikit ISO 27001 toolkit
5. Advisera ISO 27001 toolkit
6. IT Governance ISO 27001 toolkit
7. ISO/IEC 27001 toolkit
8. ISMS Alliance
9. ITSM Docs
10. Free ISO27k Toolkit

Some common alternatives names for an ISO 27001 toolkit include:

Information security management system (ISMS) toolkit
ISO 27001 implementation toolkit
ISO 27001 compliance toolkit
Information security best practices toolkit
Information security management best practices toolkit
Information security framework toolkit
ISO 27001 information security toolkit
ISO 27001 management toolkit
ISO 27001 security toolkit
ISO 27001 risk management toolkit

The top 4 common mistakes people make when using an ISO 27001 toolkit are:
Not choosing the right toolkit: this is not choosing a toolkit based on need but rather than cost and ending up with a toolkit that does not deliver what was expected.
Not customising the toolkit to meet their specific needs: a toolkit is a best practice set of documents and a common mistakes is to use it with its defaults and not to customise it based on the needs of the organisation. This is usually due to not following the toolkit or not understanding. A toolkit must be configured and tailored in line with the provided guides to the your needs otherwise you will end up spending time and money that you did not need to spend.
Not using the toolkit as a guide: a toolkit is a guide and you should exercise your own judgement in its implementation. To ignore your own judgement and needs is a common mistake.
Not getting help when they need it: There is a time where people will need help and not getting help is a top mistake people make. The toolkit should include free support and you should take advantage of it. Choose a toolkit that provides a level of free support with an ISO 27001 expert.

There are 2 stages to satisfying requirements and demonstrating a commitment to information security.
The first is the information security questionnaire. We have all had them. The request for particular documents to show that we are doing the right thing. The ISO 27001 toolkit includes all the documents that your customers and stakeholders expect you to have and are asking you for.
The second stage is getting ISO 27001 certification. To get ISO 27001 certification you will require an effective information security management system (ISMS) and this is the entire purpose of the toolkit. Having a toolkit will ensure you have an effective ISMS to meet the requirements of the standard and get certified.