Legal, statutory, regulatory and contractual requirements

What the control asks

The organization is to identify, record and keep current the requirements (legal, statutory, regulatory and contractual) bearing on information security, together with how it intends to meet them. Purpose: comply with the legal, regulatory and contractual obligations that concern information security. Guidance: external requirements are to be considered when writing security policies and procedures, when designing, implementing or changing controls, when classifying information and assets to set internal or supplier requirements, in risk assessment and treatment, in defining security processes, roles and responsibilities, and in setting contractual requirements for suppliers and the scope of what they supply. On legislation and regulation, the organization should identify all laws and regulations relevant to its security for its type of business; account for every relevant country where it operates, where products and services it uses come from, or where information crosses borders; review the list regularly to catch changes and new laws; and define and record the processes and individual responsibilities for meeting them. Cryptography often carries specific legal rules, so consider restrictions on importing or exporting hardware and software that perform, or are designed to have added, cryptographic functions; restrictions on using cryptography; mandatory or discretionary access by national authorities to encrypted information; and whether digital signatures, seals and certificates are legally valid; legal advice is recommended, especially when encrypted information or tools move across borders. Contractual security requirements include those in client contracts, supplier contracts (5.20) and insurance contracts.

Purpose in the standard’s terms, in our words: Keeps the organization compliant with the laws, regulations and contracts that concern information security.

Attribute values in one line: Preventive; Confidentiality, Integrity, Availability; Identify; Legal and compliance; Governance and ecosystem, Protection.

The five attribute values

These are the published values for this control, from ISO/IEC 27002:2022 clause 4.2 and Annex A Table A.1. Where your own value differs, record the difference and the reason in the same row rather than replacing the published value.

Evidence an auditor asks for

The attribute is a claim about how the control behaves. The evidence is what proves it operates. Keep both, and keep them together.

• A register of applicable laws, regulations and contractual obligations for information security, with the countries covered, the approach to meeting each and a named responsible owner
• Records of periodic review of the register and of new or changed legislation identified
• Evidence that the register informed policies, control design, classification, risk assessment and supplier requirements
• An assessment of cryptography import, export, usage and lawful access rules for each relevant jurisdiction, with legal advice where encryption crosses borders
• Client, supplier and insurance contracts with their security obligations extracted and tracked
• Documented processes and individual responsibilities for meeting each requirement

Where audits commonly find gaps

• The register lists laws but not how the organization meets each one or who is responsible
• Obligations in client contracts and insurance policies are not captured
• Foreign jurisdictions reached through cloud hosting or data transfer are overlooked
• Cryptography export or usage restrictions are not considered when deploying encryption internationally

What ISO/IEC 27028 changes for this control

It carries a single control type, preventive, which sets what the evidence has to prove. It contributes no detect function, so a control set built from this row alone would not show detection. Its earlier numbering (18.1.1, 18.1.5) is kept in the register so an older audit file can still be traced. It serves more than one security domain, which is why a domain count taken by row understates the view.

The guidance expands how the five values are used; it does not change the control or add a requirement. A register that carries the values and the evidence can answer the attribute question for this control without a new document. A register that does not can add the columns at the next SoA version, with an owner and a review date.

Controls that share its values

• 5.19 Information security in supplier relationships
• 5.2 Information security roles and responsibilities
• 5.20 Addressing information security within supplier agreements

Read the five attributes All 93 controls