ISO 27002:2022, Control 8.3 – Information Access Restriction

General Guidance on Control 8.3

In order to maintain effective control over information and ICT assets, and in support of access restriction measures, organisations should ensure the following in line with a topic-specific approach to information access:

1. Prevent anonymous access to information, including far-reaching public access.
• Where public or third-party access is granted, organisations should ensure that access does not extend to sensitive or business critical data.

2. Operate with adequate maintenance measures that control systems access, and any associated business applications or processes.
3. Dictate data access on a user-by-user basis.
4. Specify data access rights between groups that validate specific data operations, such as read, write, delete and execute.
5. Retain the ability to partition off business critical processes and applications using a range of physical and digital access controls.

Guidance – Dynamic Access Management

Control 8.3 advocates for a dynamic approach to information access.

Dynamic access management has numerous residual benefits for organisational processes that feature the need to share or use internal data with external users, including faster incident resolution times.

Dynamic access management techniques protect a broad range of information types, from standard documents to emails and database information, and have the ability to be applied on a granular file-by-file basis, enabling tight control of data on an organisational level.

Organisation’s should consider such an approach when:

1. Requiring granular control over what human and non-human users are able to access such information at any given time.
2. The need arises to share information with external parties (such as suppliers or regulatory bodies).
3. Considering a “real-time” approach to data management and distribution that involves monitoring and managing data use as it occurs.
4. Safeguarding information against unauthorised amendments, sharing or output (printing etc).
5. Monitoring the access to and changing of information, particularly when the information in question is of a sensitive nature.

Dynamic access management is of particular use for organisations that need to monitor and protect data from creation through to deletion, including:

1. Outlining a use case (or series of use cases) that apply data access rules based on the following variables:
• Identity
• Device
• Location
• Application
2. Outlining a process that covers off the operation and monitoring of data, and establishing a thorough reporting process which is in turn informed by a sound technical infrastructure.

All efforts to formulate a dynamic access management approach should result in data being protected by:

1. Ensuring that access to data is the end result of a successful authentication process.
2. A degree of restricted access, based on the data type and its ability impact business continuity.
3. Encryption.
4. Printing permissions.
5. Thorough audit logs that record who access data, and how that data is being used.
6. An alerts procedure that flags up inappropriate data use, including (but not limited to) unauthorised access and distribution, and attempted deletion.

Changes and Differences from ISO 27002:2013

27002:2022-8.3 replaces 27002:2013-9.4.1 (Information access restriction), and represents a major shift in how ISO considers information access management in accordance with the aforementioned dynamic approach (a technique that isn’t mentioned in the 27002:2013-9.4.1)

27002:2022-8.3 contains a large amount of guidance notes relating to dynamic access management that are absent from its 2013 counterpart, and organisations are advised to consider these on a topic-by-topic basis, when seeking certification.

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