What is covered on the CISM exam?

This domain will provide you with a thorough insight into the culture, regulations and structure involved in enterprise governance, as well as enabling you to analyze, plan and develop information security strategies. Together, this will affirm high-level credibility in information security governance to stakeholders.

This domain empowers you to analyze and identify potential information security risks, threats and vulnerabilities as well as giving you all the information about identifying and countering information security risks you will require to perform at management level.

This domain covers the resources, asset classifications and frameworks for information security as well as empowering you to manage information security programs, including security control, testing, comms and reporting and implementation.

This domain provides in-depth training in risk management and preparedness, including how to prepare a business to respond to incidents and guiding recovery. The second module covers the tools, evaluation and containment methods for incident management.

1. Identify internal and external influences to the organization that impact the information security strategy.
2. Establish and/or maintain an information security strategy in alignment with organizational goals and objectives.
3. Establish and/or maintain an information security governance framework.
4. Integrate information security governance into organizational governance.
5. Establish, communicate, and maintain information security policies to guide the development of standards, procedures, and guidelines.
6. evelop business cases to support initiatives and investments in information security.
7. Gain ongoing commitment from senior leadership and other stakeholders to support the implementation of the information security strategy.
8. Define, communicate, and monitor information security responsibilities and accountability throughout the organization.
9. Evaluate information to report on the activities, trends, and overall effectiveness of the information security program to senior leadership and other stakeholders.
10. Evaluate and report information security metrics.
11. Establish and/or maintain the information security program in alignment with the information security strategy.
12. Align the information security program with operational objectives of other business functions.
13. Integrate information security into operational functions of respective business units.
14. Ensure alignment of security architecture to enterprise architecture.
15. Update security architecture in accordance with changes to technology landscape.
16. Establish and maintain information security processes and resources to execute the information security program.
17. Establish, communicate, and maintain organizational information security standards, guidelines, procedures, and other documentation.
18. Establish, promote, and maintain an information security awareness training program.
19. Integrate information security requirements into organizational processes.
20. Integrate information security requirements into contracts and activities of external parties.
21. Monitor external parties' adherence to established security requirements and address security concerns.
22. Define and monitor management and operational metrics specific to the information security program.
23. Establish and/or maintain a process for information asset identification and classification.
24. Monitor technology landscape to identify potential impacts from emerging technologies.
25. Establish and maintain a regulatory landscape (e.g., legal, regulatory, compliance).
26. Participate in and/or oversee the information security risk management life cycle.
27. Participate in and/or oversee the vulnerability management process.
28. Participate in and/or oversee threat management process (e.g., intelligence and modeling).
29. Identify, recommend, or implement appropriate risk treatment and response options to manage risk to acceptable levels based on organizational risk appetite.
30. Determine whether information security controls are appropriate and effectively manage risk to an acceptable level
31. Facilitate the integration of information security risk management into business and IT processes.
32. Monitor for internal and external factors that may require reassessment of risk.
33. Establish and maintain a security exception process (e.g., noncompliance and changes in information risk).
34. Establish and/or maintain an incident response plan, in alignment with the business continuity plan and disaster recovery plan.
35. Establish and maintain an information security incident classification and categorization process.
36. Develop and implement processes to ensure the timely identification of information security incidents.
37. Establish and maintain processes to investigate and document information security incidents in accordance with legal and regulatory requirements.
38. Establish and maintain incident handling process (e.g., SOAR, playbooks, UEBA), including containment, notification, escalation, eradication, and recovery.
39. Organize, train, equip, and assign responsibilities to information security incident response teams.
40. Contribute to incident communication plans and processes for internal and external parties.
41. Test and review incident management plans (e.g., table-top, simulation exercises, and walk-through) at planned intervals.
42. Conduct post-incident reviews to facilitate continuous improvement, including root-cause analysis, lessons learned, corrective actions, and reassessment of risk.