At the end of October, we submitted the manuscript of the 5th Edition of our best-selling book on implementing an ISO27001 Information Security Management System (ISMS) to our external publisher, Kogan Page. It should be in bookshops across the world in Spring 2012.
This 5th Edition is completely updated and combines the content of International IT Governance, the version of the book that we produced for the North American market, with that of IT Governance. This means that there will now be a single edition, with coverage of IT governance, legal, security and compliance issues in the UK and in North America, as well as in Europe and elsewhere across the world.
We’ve obviously also updated all the technology content of the book, and have included the most recent information about Advanced Persistent Threats, attack vectors, cyber crime standards, the cyber resilience agenda, social media governance, PCI DSS and, of course, cloud computing.
While the core standards, ISO/IEC 27001 and ISO/IEC 27002, have not yet been updated from the versions published in 2005, a whole family of ISO27000 standards has been created and are being published with great regularity. Our new book incorporates material from a number of these standards and places them in their broader implementation context.
While working on the book, I came across a growing number of surveys and reports in which the link between increased expenditure on information security and a reduced incidence of cyber breaches (and, therefore, reduced financial and business impairment) is clear. It has always been obvious to us that, in an insecure neighbourhood – and the Internet is a deeply insecure environment – it is simply good sense to lock the doors, alarm the house and secure one’s valuable assets.
The growing number of organisations certificated to ISO27001 (many of whom have taken advantage of our range of certificated ISO27001 training courses to prepare themselves) all contribute to greater information security awareness amongst users of digital assets. We hope that the 5th edition of IT Governance: a Manager’s Guide will help many more organisations around the world make the first step toward better digital self-preservation.