ISO/IEC 27001:2022·Annex A A.8.20·high·Component: Technological controls

What this control requires

Networks and network devices shall be secured, managed and controlled to protect information in systems and applications.
— ISO/IEC 27001:2022, Annex A A.8.20

In plain English

Networks and network devices shall be secured, managed and controlled to protect information in systems and applications. In practice, this means you can prove you information information-level controls on a defined cadence.

Why it matters

ISO 27001 certification depends on showing each Annex A control is either implemented or explicitly justified for exclusion in the Statement of Applicability (SoA). Certification bodies sample controls during surveillance audits, and a missing SoA entry — or implementation that doesn't match the SoA wording — is a finding.

This control is rated high. Auditors expect a named owner, a remediation SLA, and a tooling artefact that evidences continuous operation.

What an auditor looks for

An ISO 27001 lead auditor looks for: (1) an SoA entry covering the control with justification, (2) a documented procedure or policy implementing it, (3) records that prove the procedure runs (logs, tickets, training records) and (4) management-review evidence that effectiveness is monitored.

Within Technological controls, the assessor will trace your implementation back to the catalogue reference (Annex A A.8.20) and look for objective evidence on the latest two assessment cycles.

How to implement

Endpoint Protection

MDM. Make MDM enrollment a hard gate for device access (Intune compliance + Conditional Access, or Jamf + Okta device trust). Unmanaged devices simply don't get a session token.

EDR. Deploy CrowdStrike / SentinelOne / Defender for Endpoint to every server and laptop; alert on any host that stops sending telemetry for >24h.

Network Security

AWS. VPC Flow Logs to S3, default-deny security groups, AWS Network Firewall for north-south, and Transit Gateway for hub-and-spoke segmentation.

Azure. NSGs with deny-by-default, Azure Firewall Premium with TLS inspection, Private Endpoints for PaaS, and Microsoft Defender for Cloud's secure score for drift.

GCP. VPC Service Controls perimeters around sensitive APIs, Cloud NGFW Enterprise for L7 inspection, Private Service Connect for managed services.

Operational checklist

  • Information. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
  • Protection. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
  • Protect. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
  • Security. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
  • Networks. Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
  • Scope: information, security, networks.

Evidence to collect

  • Infra Scan. Continuous infrastructure-posture telemetry — AWS Config, Azure Policy compliance, GCP Organisation Policy, Wiz / Prisma findings.

Network posture platforms (Prisma Cloud, Defender for Cloud) validate firewall, IDS and segmentation controls.

Common pitfalls

  • Pilot MDM rollouts that quietly exclude executives or engineers; carving out the highest-risk users is the most common audit failure.
  • Default-allow egress rules; East-West traffic with no segmentation; jump hosts on the public internet with password auth.

How it maps to other frameworks

Computed from shared tags, control component and key-operation subjects — handy when you are reconciling controls across an audit.

Related controls in ISO/IEC 27001:2022

References

Topics: endpoint securityendpoint protectionnetwork security