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Using JFrog to Align Your Systems for ISO 27001 Compliance

Paul Davis

By Paul Davis, Field CISO

8 min read

ISO/IEC 27001 is an information security standard that is quickly becoming a must-have for any organization that handles proprietary customer data. ISO 27001 certification is now often a requirement to do business, particularly for IT and SaaS organizations – JFrog included!

In this blog, you’ll learn more about ISO 27001, how to get certified, and how JFrog Platform capabilities can help you streamline the certification process.

What is ISO 27001?

ISO 27001 is a global standard for establishing a comprehensive Information Security Management System (ISMS) which manages an organization’s data with a systematic, risk-based approach. The standard provides a framework to establish, implement, maintain and continually improve an ISMS to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data.

Here is a summary of key ISO 27001 requirements:

  • Integrate security requirements and design documentation.
  • Conduct security architecture reviews and apply privacy by design.
  • Implement and document secure coding guidelines for programming languages.
  • Provide regular security awareness and secure coding training for developers.
  • Use code reviews, automated analysis tools, and penetration testing during the development lifecycle.
  • Maintain strict separation of development, test, and production environments while controlling movements of code and data between them.
  • Secure source code repositories with role-based access and change-log auditing.
  • Protect test data and use anonymized or synthetic data in test environments.
  • Document and enforce release management and change approval processes for promotion to production.

How do I get ISO 27001 Certified?

To begin the process of ISO 27001 certification, we suggest starting with the following steps:

  1. Select an accreditation organization: The most widely recognized ISO 27001 accreditor in the United States is the ANSI National Accreditation Board (ANAB). It’s important to select an accredited certification body to ensure your ISO 27001 certificate is internationally accepted and trustworthy.  There are other certification bodies for organizations based in other parts of the world.
  2. Plan and Prepare:  Ensure that the entire organization, including senior management, has bought into the importance of ISO 27001. Once you’ve gained buy-in, you’ll also want to make sure that you clearly define the scope of certification by understanding which parts of your organization will be covered. Aligning people and resources to ISO 27001 is the foundational first step, and typically the most difficult part of certification.
  3. Implement Your ISMS: You must start with a risk assessment that identifies and evaluates all potential threats and vulnerabilities to your information assets. Based on the assessment, you’ll create and implement a Statement of Applicability (SoA), which is a mandatory document for ISO 27001 certification that outlines which Annex A controls are applicable and justify why you’ll exclude others. Then, based on the SoA you’ll need to implement the security controls identified, and make sure that your document has everything related to this process including policies, procedures, and evidence.
  4. Audit for Certification: You’ll be required to start with an internal audit, before moving forward with the official auditing process. You’ll then perform your official audit with your ISO 27001 accreditor, which includes a Documentation Audit (Stage 1) followed by the more hands-on Main Certification Audit (Stage 2). If you pass every step, ISO 27001 certification is generally valid for three years.

The certification body will perform annual audits in the second and third years to ensure your ISMS is up to standards. After three years, you’ll need to renew your certification by undergoing a full review which is similar to the initial Stage 2 audit.

How can JFrog help with aligning to ISO 27001?

The JFrog Platform provides important mechanisms, controls, and implementation for software supply chain security. The mapping matrix below details how JFrog supports different elements of ISO 27001. This mapping covers both the direct ISO 27001 controls, especially in Annex A, as well as how they translate into specific processes in each stage of the SDLC.

ISO 27001 and the JFrog Platform: Mapping Matrix

ISO 27001 Control Control Name & Description SDLC Phase(s) How JFrog Supports
5.8 Information Security in Project Management: Ensure security risks are addressed from the start of a project, not as an afterthought. This includes protecting sensitive data and maintaining compliance throughout the project lifecycle. Design JFrog Catalog: Assess new libraries and LLMs for risks.

JFrog Curation: Create policies to block risky packages and manage exceptions.
8.25 Secure Development Life Cycle: Implement security standards across the entire development lifecycle. This involves environment segregation, security awareness training, secure coding, and security testing. Design, Implementation, Testing, Release JFrog Platform: Helps with managing product release lifecycles, role-based access control (RBAC), and enabling security practices for all teams.

Evidence Collection: Attach evidence files to software artifacts and release versions to prove testing and process adherence.
8.26 Application Security Requirements: Identify and approve security requirements for all applications. The goal is to build security in from the start, covering aspects like access control, secure coding, data encryption, and monitoring. Design, Implementation JFrog Platform: Provides controls to enforce or alert on many of these requirements, such as secure coding practices and access control.
8.27 Secure Systems Architecture and Engineering Principles: Apply security principles in system design and engineering. This includes peer reviews with a focus on privacy and security. Design JFrog Platform: Protects the entire software development lifecycle with “security by design” principles, providing end-to-end visibility and controls to govern how assets are uploaded,  promoted, and released into production.

JFrog Advanced Security / Xray / Curation: Automates vulnerability identification, malicious package detection, license analysis, and artifact integrity checks from the moment dependencies are introduced.
8.28 Secure Coding: Incorporate security principles like least privilege and defense-in-depth at every level. This requires documenting procedures for lifecycle management, threat modeling, and continuous reviews. Implementation, Testing JFrog Platform: Enforces policy-driven workflows that mandate secure coding practices.

JFrog Xray / Advanced Security: Scans code, binaries, and dependencies in real-time for vulnerabilities, malicious packages and insecure practices. It can block unsafe builds and provides vulnerability prioritization and remediation guidance.
8.29 Security Testing in Development and Acceptance: Embed security testing throughout the development process to validate security requirements before moving code to production. This applies to both in-house and third-party software. Testing, Release JFrog Platform: Integrates automated and evidence-based security and compliance testing gates into CI/CD pipelines.

JFrog Xray / Runtime: Provides real-time, continuous scanning for vulnerabilities and compliance. JFrog security tools support various testing disciplines,can block builds that fail security criteria, and provide continuous supply chain security through to releases running in production.
8.31 Test Environment: Segregate development, testing, and production environments to protect production data and systems from risks during testing and development. All Phases JFrog Platform: Enables the creation of separated test environments with distinct repositories and pipelines. It provides fine-grained access control and ensures artifacts are promoted only through authorized workflows.

JFrog Xray: Enforces security policies across all environments, ensuring insecure code doesn’t move between them.
8.32 Version Control: Securely manage changes to systems and processing facilities to prevent vulnerabilities or disruptions. This requires a systematic and auditable approach to change management. Implementation, Release JFrog Platform: Automates and documents CI/CD workflows, requiring explicit approvals and traceable processes for changes. It supports version control and issue tracking to link code changes to tickets and risk assessments. JFrog also provides advanced AI model versioning, release version management.
8.33 Test Information: Securely manage test data in non-production environments to protect confidentiality and integrity. Testing JFrog Platform: Supports separate repositories for test data, providing granular RBAC to limit access. It comprehensively logs all interactions with test artifacts for audit purposes and ensures only authorized artifacts are promoted to higher environments.
8.4 Access Control to Source Code: Protect an organization’s source code (as a key intellectual property asset) from unauthorized access, tampering, and accidental disclosure. Implementation, Release JFrog Artifactory: Stores code artifacts, binaries, and dependencies in secure, centralized repositories. It uses RBAC to grant access on a least-privilege basis and logs every action for auditing. Changes must follow formal workflows.

Summary: Leveraging JFrog for ISO 27001 Compliance

The JFrog Platform enables the following key functionality to help comply with ISO 27001 and other emerging software regulations:

  • Shift Left Security: Scan and block risky dependencies as early as possible.
  • Continuous Monitoring: Automate vulnerability, license, and misconfiguration scans from code commit to runtime.
  • Proactive Governance: Apply evidence-based policies at any stage of the SDLC, providing organizations proactive visibility into risk and take action to block potentially malicious code as required.
  • Auditing and Reporting: Maintain audit-ready records of build chains, artifact provenance, and security fixes.
  • Reduce Manual Processes: Automate compliance checks to reduce human error and  let teams  focus on innovation rather than paperwork.

The JFrog Platform brings together artifact management, security scanning, policy enforcement, runtime monitoring, and evidence collection—enabling you to meet and document ISO 27001 requirements and industry best practices throughout the software development lifecycle. This helps streamline technical security controls,  governance, and the auditing necessary for compliance and continuous improvement.

If you’d like to see how JFrog can help your organization comply with the latest regulatory standards, then feel free to schedule a demo, take an online tour or start a free trial at your convenience. We’ll be happy to help!

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