This kind of question keeps coming up, many people are unclear about the Statement of Applicability on ISO-27000.
The SoA should outline the measures to be taken in order to reduce risks such as those mentioned in Annex A of the standard. These are based on ‘Controls’.
But if you are using closed-source products such as those from Microsoft, are you giving up control? Things like validation checks and integrity controls are are ‘internal’.
Well, its a bit of a word-play.
- SoA contains exclusions on controls that are not applicable because the organization doesn’t deal with these problems (ie ecommerce)
- SoA contains exclusions on controls that pose a threat (and risks arise) but cannot be helped (ie A.12.2 Correct processing in applications) and no measures can be taken to reduce these risks.
With this, a record must be present in risk assessments, stating that the risk (even if it is above minimum accepted risk level) is accepted
The key to the SOA is SCOPE. Continue reading Help on ISO-27000 SoA