Training module
Auditing Information Security Risk Management
Evaluate asset–threat–vulnerability logic, risk treatment decisions, and traceability to controls and the Statement of Applicability
Does your audit go beyond checking risk registers to judging risk reasoning and treatment choices?
In many audits, risk management looks “complete” on paper but breaks down when you follow one risk from context to treatment and control operation. This module builds a practical audit lens for testing whether risk reasoning is credible, decisions are explainable, and traceability holds under scrutiny.
Overview
What this module is about
ISO/IEC 27001 expects risk assessment and risk treatment to drive the information security management system (ISMS), not to exist as standalone documentation. In practice, auditors often encounter generic asset lists, recycled threat catalogues, inconsistent scoring, and a Statement of Applicability (SoA) that cannot be traced back to specific risks and treatment decisions.
This standard-specific auditing module focuses on how to audit ISMS risk management where information security logic materially matters: asset–threat–vulnerability reasoning, treatment decision quality, and traceability from risks to chosen controls (including Annex A) and the SoA. It does not re-teach generic risk management methods or generic audit techniques; it applies an audit judgement lens to ISO/IEC 27001 risk management expectations.
Audience
Who it is for
Management system implementers and coordinators
Executives and department heads accountable for management system performance
Those responsible for processes, policies, assets, risks and controls
Auditors seeking insight into management-side practice, not audit technique
Consultants working on management system design, governance or improvement
Decision supportIs this module for you?
It is a good fit if you…
aim to audit whether ISMS risk management actually drives security decisions.
want to test asset–threat–vulnerability reasoning, not just risk register completeness.
follow risks from context through treatment decisions to controls and the SoA.
strengthen judgement on risk acceptance, prioritisation, and traceability.
seek audit findings that reveal weak risk reasoning and systemic gaps.
It may not be the best fit if you…
primarily want to design or improve risk assessment or treatment methods.
expect generic risk management frameworks or scoring models.
focus on facilitating workshops or producing risk documentation.
are unwilling to challenge formally complete but weak risk rationales.
What to bring
This module assumes participants can already work with audit evidence and professional judgement, and have baseline familiarity with ISO/IEC 27001 ISMS terminology (including the Statement of Applicability).
Helpful background includes:
Understanding of generic risk and opportunity treatment logic (methods are not re-taught here)
Ability to distinguish documented intent from evidence of operation
Familiarity with common information security assets and dependencies (for example, identity, endpoints, cloud services, critical data flows)
Agenda
What is taught
6 parts01What makes ISMS risk management audit-ready
Assesses whether risk management functions as a decision and traceability system, not whether a risk register exists or “looks complete”.
02Testing asset–threat–vulnerability reasoning
Tests plausibility of assets in scope, realistic threat paths, and meaningful vulnerabilities, including boundary and dependency risks from shared services, cloud, suppliers, and shadow assets.
03Risk assessment outputs that hold under audit
Checks internal consistency across scope, assets, incidents, weaknesses, and results, and uses targeted sampling to expose weak or convenience-driven reasoning.
04Judging risk treatment decisions
Evaluates whether treatment choices (reduce, retain, avoid, share) are coherent, authorised, and documented, and whether risk acceptance is credible in terms of authority, rationale, residual risk, and review triggers.
05Traceability to controls and the Statement of Applicability (SoA)
Verifies traceability from risks to control selection and applicability rationale, and tests SoA completeness and indicators of “control theatre”.
06Evidence trails from documentation to operation
Follows evidence from treatment decisions into projects, control implementation, and operational reality, and identifies disconnects between plans, controls, and actual operation.
Outcomes
Learning outcomes
01
Evaluate whether asset–threat–vulnerability logic is credible and fit for decision-making in an ISMS
02
Test internal consistency of risk assessment results using practical audit checks and targeted sampling heuristics
03
Assess whether risk treatment decisions are explainable, authorised, and reviewable
Verify end-to-end traceability from risks to controls and to the Statement of Applicability (SoA)
Identify common systemic failure modes in ISO/IEC 27001 risk management and recognise early warning signals
Build effective audit trails and evidence requests that connect risk documentation to operational control reality
Materials
The content and the assessment
Written module
The full content in writing, complete in itself. Videos are recorded for parts of it as an alternative way through, and the written module always carries everything.
Exercises
Graded work on the case organisation's own registers: structured answers checked against the encoded case, written answers scored against a rubric traced to it, with a trainer holding the final word on every assessed item.
On completion
The assessed exercises must be passed before the certificate is issued.
Scheduling
No public run of Auditing Information Security Risk Management is scheduled at the moment. Tell us you are interested and we will let you know when the next one opens, or discuss running it in-house.
Module facts
- Module ID
- HAM-IS-A-01
- Discipline
- Information Security
- Part of tracks
- Management System Auditor
Case organisation
All modules share one company
Each module enters the company at a particular point in its history and finds it as that history has left it.
Northstar Integrated Services AG is a group headquartered in Zurich, operating in six European countries, with about 1,350 employees at the end of 2025. It provides digital operations platforms and managed operational services to regulated organisations in healthcare, the public sector and industrial services. Founded in 2008 as a field-operations firm serving business customers, it had about twenty-five employees when its first regulated customer, a hospital group, required documented decisions, named accountability and evidence on request. It moved into the platform business in 2016 and in 2024 acquired an operating business in Poland and the Czech Republic, whose legal entity continues inside the group.
Linked registers
Organisation and people, roles, risks, objectives, policies, documents and records, communications, findings, audits and reviews, interested parties, processes
Records, not summaries
The evidence sits in the registers and documents where a real organisation would keep it.
A history
The company has a timeline from 2008, so a structure can be examined before and after it changed.
More than one legal entity
A Swiss parent company and an acquired subsidiary in Poland and the Czech Republic, with customers in several jurisdictions
Why it matters
Judgement develops on material that is incomplete and partly contradictory, as it is in practice. Northstar is built that way on purpose. Because modules enter its history at different points, a governance structure can be seen while it is built, when it is outgrown and when it is rebuilt.
Delivery & dates
How this module reaches you
Delivered live online, combining conceptual framing, discussion, case work and direct interaction with the trainer. In-house and contextualised delivery is available on request.
No public run is scheduled at the moment. Most modules run on request as well as on the public calendar, so tell us the timing you need.
Want this module scheduled?
We will tell you when the next run is scheduled, or run this module in-house with your own case material.
Not sure it is the right module?
Describe your context in a short message and we will tell you honestly.