A.5.35 Organizational
Independent review of information security
Structured attributes from ISO/IEC 27002:2022 — control type · CIA properties · cybersecurity concept · operational capability · security domain. What do these mean?
Mapped NIST 800-53 r5 controls (9)
Our AI-authored reading (authority llm_unverified, under review) of how this ISO control and each NIST 800-53 control relate. Not an ISO or NIST product.
Direction: ← other covers this;
→ this covers other (F/M/P = full / mostly /
partial). gov = governs / implements (a mandate, not coverage).
Why these map — AI rationale (under review)
- CA-2mostlyaligns with — Both controls require periodic, independent assessments of security controls to evaluate effectiveness and identify needed improvements.
- AU-6partialaligns with — Both emphasize independent review and reporting of security-related information to management for oversight and action.
- CA-5partialaligns with — Findings from the ISO independent reviews directly drive the creation and tracking of corrective actions and milestones.
- CA-7partialaligns with — The ISO control's independent reviews feed into ongoing monitoring by providing objective evidence of control adequacy and gaps.
- PM-4partialaligns with — The ISO control's requirement to initiate corrective actions when deficiencies are found aligns with maintaining and executing a POA&M process.
Aligned NIST CSF 2.0 outcomes (19)
NIST CSF 2.0 outcomes this ISO control aligns with — our AI-authored analysis (authority llm_unverified, under review).
Direction: ← other covers this;
→ this covers other (F/M/P = full / mostly /
partial). gov = governs / implements (a mandate, not coverage).
Why these map — AI rationale (under review)
- GV.OV-03mostlyaligns with — Periodic independent reviews of the information security program directly support evaluating organizational cybersecurity risk management performance and determining needed adjustments.
- GV.OV-01partialaligns with — Independent review findings provide input that informs and may prompt adjustments to the cybersecurity risk management strategy and direction.
- GV.PO-02partialaligns with — Independent reviews assess whether policies and controls remain adequate and trigger corrective actions when gaps are found.
- GV.RR-01partialaligns with — Reporting review results to top management reinforces leadership accountability for cybersecurity risk and the maintenance of a risk-aware culture.
- ID.IM-01partialaligns with — The review process explicitly identifies opportunities for improvement and the need for changes to the information security approach.
- GV.OV-03implements — A.5.35's independent review of the ISMS directly operationalizes the evaluation and review of cybersecurity risk management performance that GV.OV-03 requires within the governance oversight domain
- GV.PO-02implements — Assessed as NOT holding by the authoring instrument at v1.19-2026-08-23. This row records a tested non-relation; it is not a graded claim and carries no rationale, because the instrument produced none when the verb did not hold.
- GV.RR-01implements — Assessed as NOT holding by the authoring instrument at v1.19-2026-08-23. This row records a tested non-relation; it is not a graded claim and carries no rationale, because the instrument produced none when the verb did not hold.
- ID.IM-01implements — A.5.35's independent reviews operationally deliver the evaluations whose outputs are required by ID.IM-01 to identify improvements; the link is within the improvement-from-evaluation domain but ID.IM-01 does not name independent review specifically.
Related weaknesses / CWE (5)
Weakness classes this ISO control helps prevent or mitigate — our AI-authored analysis (authority llm_unverified, under review).
Direction: ← other covers this;
→ this covers other (F/M/P = full / mostly /
partial). gov = governs / implements (a mandate, not coverage).
Why these map — AI rationale (under review)
- CWE-250finds — Independent scrutiny can identify processes or services still running with unnecessary privileges and drive their reduction before an attacker can abuse them.
- CWE-284finds — Periodic independent assessment of whether documented security objectives and controls are actually implemented and effective can surface missing or bypassed access-control decisions before they are exploited.
- CWE-285finds — Independent reviewers evaluate whether authorization logic matches policy, thereby reducing the window in which incorrect or missing authorization checks remain in production.
- CWE-732finds — Reviewers examine whether critical resources have correct permission assignments, prompting corrective action when overly permissive settings are discovered.
- CWE-862finds — By requiring competent outsiders to verify that every function enforces the need-to-know principle, the control lowers the likelihood that missing authorization checks persist undetected.
Mitigated MITRE ATT&CK techniques (205)
Adversary techniques (MITRE ATT&CK Enterprise) this ISO control helps mitigate; links open attack.mitre.org. Our AI-authored analysis (authority llm_unverified, under review).
Direction: ← other covers this;
→ this covers other (F/M/P = full / mostly /
partial). gov = governs / implements (a mandate, not coverage).
Why these map — AI rationale (under review)
- T1110.001prevents — independent reviews of the ISMS (including policy and controls) can surface and drive correction of insufficient account-lockout, complexity, or authentication-strength rules that enable guessing, but do not themselves stop the technique from running
- T1137.001prevents — periodic independent reviews of the ISMS (including policies on macro handling and trusted locations) can identify and drive correction of gaps that would otherwise allow this persistence technique, but do not stop an already-placed malicious template from executing on application start
Prevented OWASP Web Top 10 (2025) risks (11)
OWASP Web Top 10 (2025) risk categories this ISO control helps prevent or mitigate — our AI-authored analysis (authority llm_unverified, under review).
Direction: ← other covers this;
→ this covers other (F/M/P = full / mostly /
partial). gov = governs / implements (a mandate, not coverage).
Why these map — AI rationale (under review)
- A02finds — independent reviews of the ISMS (including policies, controls and their implementation) can surface misconfigurations and weak defaults as part of assessing effectiveness and compliance, but the clause is a high-level governance review rather than targeted configuration scanning or testing, leaving the bulk of concrete misconfigurations untouched
- A06finds — independent reviews of the ISMS (including policies, controls and opportunities for improvement) can surface design-level weaknesses when they manifest as inadequate or non-compliant controls, but the clause is a high-level governance process that does not systematically inspect architecture or designs for baked-in flaws
- A10finds — independent reviews of the ISMS (including when triggered by incidents or significant changes) can surface mishandled error paths that violate policy or effectiveness criteria, but this is a minority slice of the class whose dominant members are code-level defects discovered by testing or static analysis
Control IDs, short titles and the structured attribute table (control type, CIA properties, cybersecurity-concept, operational capability, security domain) are facts from ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A / ISO/IEC 27002:2022. The full implementation guidance prose lives in ISO/IEC 27002:2022 — not reproduced here. Cross-walks to NIST 800-53, NIST CSF 2.0, OWASP ASVS, CWE, MITRE ATT&CK and OWASP Web Top 10 are our own AI-authored analysis (authority llm_unverified, under review), not an ISO, NIST, MITRE or OWASP product — how ours compare.