# ISO/IEC 27001:2022 A.8.7 — Protection against malware

- Source: https://support.icompaas.com/compliance/iso-27001-2022/a-8-7-protection-against-malware
- Section: [Compliance](https://support.icompaas.com/compliance) › [ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A Controls](https://support.icompaas.com/compliance/iso-27001-2022) › Technological controls
- Last updated: 2026-06-05
- Publisher: iCompaas, Inc. (https://www.icompaas.com)

**ISO/IEC 27001:2022**·Annex A `A.8.7`·medium·Component: **Technological controls**

## What this control requires

> Protection against malware shall be implemented and supported by appropriate user awareness.
> 
> — ISO/IEC 27001:2022, Annex A A.8.7

### In plain English

Protection against malware shall be implemented and supported by appropriate user awareness. In practice, this means you can prove you threat intelligence-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.

## 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.8.7) 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.

### Operational checklist

-   **Threat.** Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
-   **Protection.** Document the trigger, the owner and the cadence.
-   **Scope:** intelligence, against malware.

## Evidence to collect

-   **Edr Scan.** `edr_scan` evidence
-   **Infra Scan.** Continuous infrastructure-posture telemetry — AWS Config, Azure Policy compliance, GCP Organisation Policy, Wiz / Prisma findings.

EDR telemetry (CrowdStrike, Defender for Endpoint) confirms malware controls are deployed.

## Common pitfalls

-   Pilot MDM rollouts that quietly exclude executives or engineers; carving out the highest-risk users is the most common audit failure.

## 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.

-   [**CIS Controls v8 10.6** — Centrally Manage Anti-Malware Software](https://support.icompaas.com/compliance/cis-controls-v8/10-6-centrally-manage-anti-malware-software)

## References

-   [ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 27 — ISO/IEC 27001:2022](https://www.iso.org/standard/27001)
-   Catalogue identifier: `Annex A A.8.7`

Topics: awareness trainingedr xdrendpoint protectionthreat intelligence

## Related compliance guidance

- [ISO/IEC 27001:2022 compliance: a practical implementation guide](https://support.icompaas.com/compliance/iso-27001-2022): Start with the full ISO 27001 implementation guide — scope, roadmap, evidence and how the assessment runs.
- [SOC 2 compliance: a practical implementation guide for cloud-native SaaS teams](https://support.icompaas.com/compliance/soc-2-trust-services-criteria): Most companies that hold ISO 27001 also need a SOC 2 report for North American customers, and the two share most of their technical controls.