ISO 27002:2022, Control 8.13 – Information Backup

General Guidance on Control 8.13

Organisations should draft topic-specific policies that directly address how the organisation backs up the relevant areas of its network.

Backup facilities should be implemented with the primary aim of ensuring that all business critical data, software and systems are able to be recovered following the below events:

• Data loss
• Intrusion
• Business interruption
• Failure of systems, applications or storage media

Any backup plan created in accordance with Control 8.13 should aim to:

1. Outline clear and concise restoration procedures that cover all relevant critical systems and services.
2. Produce workable copies of any systems, data or applications that are covered under a backup job.
3. Meet the unique commercial and operational requirements of the organisation (e.g. recovery time objectives, backup types, backup frequency) (see Control 5.30).
4. Store backups in an appropriate location that is environmentally protected, physically distinct from the source data in order to prevent total data loss, and securely accessed for maintenance purposes (see Control 8.1).
5. Mandate for regular testing of backup jobs, in order to guarantee data availability should the need arise to restore files, systems or applications at a moment’s notice. Backup tests should be measured against the organisation’s agreed recovery times to ensure adherence in the event of data loss or system interruption.
6. Encrypt data that has been backed up, in accordance with its risk level.
7. Check for data loss before running any backup jobs.
8. Implement a reporting system that alerts maintenance staff to the status of backup jobs – including complete or partial failures – so that remedial action can be taken.
9. Include data from cloud-based platforms that are not directly managed by the organisation.
10. Store backup data in line with a topic-specific retention policy that takes into account the underlying nature and purpose of the data that’s been backed up, including transfer and/or archiving to storage media (see Control 8.10).

Supporting Controls

• 5.30
• 8.1
• 8.10

Changes and Differences from ISO 27002:2013

ISO 27002:2022-8.13 replaces ISO 27002:2003-12.3.1 (Information backup).

ISO 27002:2022-8.13 contains the same set of operational standards as its 2003 counterpart, with additional guidance offered in the below areas:

• Checking for data loss before running any backup jobs
• Implementing a reporting system
• Cloud-based platforms
• Storing backups in line with a topic-specific retention and archiving policy

How ISMS.online Helps

ISMS.online will also help you demonstrate compliance with the ISO 27002 standard by providing a management dashboard, reports and audit logs.

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• An easy to use and customise documentation management system.
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