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ISO 27001 certification for managed service providers

Certification for MSPs and MSSPs whose clients trust them with privileged access, from auditors who understand multi-tenant operations.

Why organizations in this sector certify

  • Client and cyber insurance requirements for MSPs holding privileged access
  • Winning larger contracts and public-sector work
  • Demonstrating security after high-profile MSP supply chain incidents

Why MSPs certify

Managed service providers hold the keys to their clients’ environments, which makes them a target and a supply chain risk. Clients, insurers, and regulators have noticed. ISO 27001 certification is now a routine requirement in MSP contracts and tenders, and a practical way to show that privileged access, remote management, and change control are governed rather than improvised.

What the audit focuses on

An MSP audit turns on how you keep client environments separate, how you control your own staff’s access to them, and how you would know if either had been compromised. We pay particular attention to:

  • Remote monitoring and management tooling. Hardening, access control, and monitoring of the platforms that give you access to clients, which are themselves prime targets.
  • Privileged access. Named accounts, MFA, approval and time-limiting of elevated access, and logging that ties actions to people.
  • Segregation. Technical and procedural separation between client environments and between clients and your own corporate systems.
  • Change and configuration. How changes to client systems are requested, approved, tested, and recorded, and how standard configurations are maintained.
  • Detection and response. Monitoring coverage across your own and client environments, alert handling, and how incidents affecting clients are communicated.
  • Continuity. Your ability to keep serving clients if your own systems, offices, or key suppliers are unavailable.

Evidence we typically examine

  • RMM and PSA platform configuration, roles, and audit logs
  • Privileged access requests and reviews for a sample of clients
  • Change tickets from request to closure, including emergency changes
  • Alert-to-ticket traces from the security monitoring platform
  • Onboarding and offboarding of engineers, including credential rotation
  • Supplier reviews for the software and services your operation depends on

Scope

MSP scopes usually cover service delivery, service desk, security operations if offered, and corporate functions, across all offices. Multi-site providers can be certified under one certificate with sites sampled across the cycle.

Questions

Questions from managed service providers clients

Does the certificate cover our clients’ systems?
No. The scope covers your organization and the services you deliver, including how you manage access to client environments. It does not certify a client’s own security. Clients can rely on it as evidence of how you operate.
We hold admin credentials for hundreds of clients. What does the auditor expect?
A privileged access management approach that is documented and enforced: individual accounts, MFA, just-in-time or time-limited access where possible, session logging, and regular access reviews. The auditor will sample clients and trace how access is granted, used, and removed.
Can we include our security operations center in scope?
Yes. Managed detection and response services are commonly in scope and the audit will examine detection coverage, alert handling, escalation, and reporting to clients.

Other industries

More sectors we audit

Ready to scope your audit?

Tell us about your organization, your ISMS scope, and your target date. We reply with a fixed-fee quote and available audit dates within two business days.

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