7.5 Protecting against physical and environmental threats
The organization is to design and implement protection for its infrastructure against natural disasters and other physical or environmental hazards, whether deliberate or accidental. Purpose: prevent events arising from physical and environmental threats, or lessen their consequences. Guidance: assess the risks from such threats before critical operations start at a site and at regular intervals afterwards, put the necessary safeguards in place and watch for changes in threats. Obtain specialist advice on handling hazards including fire, flooding, earthquakes, explosions, civil disorder, toxic waste or emissions, and other disasters of natural or human origin. The location and construction of premises should account for local topography (elevation, nearby water, tectonic faults) and urban threats (places likely to attract political unrest, crime or terrorism). Based on the risk assessment, consider controls such as: early fire detection that raises alarms or triggers suppression to protect storage media and systems, using the suppressant best suited to the setting (for example gas in enclosed spaces); early flood detection beneath floors of areas holding media or systems, with pumps or similar readily available; protection of servers and client systems against power surges; and random checks of people, vehicles and goods entering sensitive facilities for explosives or weapons. Other information: safes and secure storage protect contents against fire, earthquake, flood or explosion; crime prevention through environmental design can turn features like statues or water features into barriers instead of bollards.
Source: ISO/IEC 27002:2022, 7.5. The statement above is our statement of the clause, read from the published text and cited so you can check it against the official text, not the instrument verbatim. Open ISO/IEC 27002:2022 in the compliance library.
ISO/IEC 27002 is guidance on the Annex A controls; certification is against ISO/IEC 27001. Use this set when your sheet follows the 27002 numbering.
These are the artefacts auditors commonly ask for on this requirement, our guidance rather than text from the standard. Your assessor decides what is sufficient in your context, and asks for samples across the period when a report covers one.
system holds itEvidence a system already holds
none for this control
periodic reviewEvidence produced at each review
- Specialist advice or reports on fire, flood, seismic, explosion and civil unrest risks · Policy repository / GRC workspace
- Site selection records considering elevation, water, fault lines and urban threat profile · Policy repository / GRC workspace
- Fire detection and suppression system design, inspection and test records, with the suppressant chosen for the environment · Physical access / facilities
- Under-floor flood detection, pump availability and surge protection records · Policy repository / GRC workspace
- Records of random inspections for explosives or weapons at sensitive facilities where applied · Physical access / facilities
governing documentDocuments that govern the control
- Physical and environmental risk assessments performed before critical operations began at each site and repeated periodically · Policy repository / GRC workspace
First move
Common gaps auditors find
- No environmental risk assessment was made before a data room was built
- Water suppression is used where it would destroy equipment and media
- Flood detection is absent beneath raised floors
- Threat changes such as new flood mapping are not monitored
Do this for your whole sheet
Paste the rows you run your controls from and get this mapping for every control at once, with the periodic-review ones flagged and a first move per row. No account for the first run.
Build my evidence sheet7.4 Physical security monitoring · 7.6 Working in secure areas