Exemplar Global ISMS Lead Auditor cheat sheet

Audit client, auditee, team leader and certification decision roles differ.

A programme and an individual audit plan have different scope.

Requirements, control guidance and audit guidance are distinct.

ISO19011:2018 examples are historical; current2026 details require actual text.

Sampling and checklists have explicit coverage limits.

Findings need criterion, evidence and observed nonconformity.

An independent auditor is not automatically the corrective-solution designer.

Correction, implementation and demonstrated effectiveness are different.

Identification, authentication, authorisation and accounting are four distinct steps.

MFA needs two different factor categories, not two instances of one.

RBAC suits stable job roles; ABAC suits context-dependent, fine-grained rules.

Kerberos uses a KDC with TGT and service tickets for SSO.

Symmetric ciphers handle bulk data; asymmetric ciphers solve key distribution and signatures.

Signing uses a specified signature scheme with the signer’s private key; verification and custody are essential to origin evidence.

ECB leaks patterns; use authenticated modes such as GCM or encrypt-then-MAC.

Asset inventory and configuration baselines underpin every operational control.

Changes need an appropriate authorization path, recovery planning and relevant evidence.

Emergency changes still require retrospective documentation within a defined window.

Monitor log sources for silence, not just for events.

Distinguish historical Revision 2 phases from current NIST incident-response guidance integrated with broader risk management.

Containment precedes eradication in almost every scenario.

Capture volatile evidence (memory, connections) before disk and before power-off.

Risk assessment cycles through identification, analysis, and evaluation, producing a maintained risk register

Single loss expectancy = asset value x exposure factor; annualized loss expectancy = SLE x annualized rate of occurrence

Risk requires a threat, a vulnerability, and an impact; none alone is sufficient

Inherent risk is before controls, residual risk after them - always state which is being scored

Control effectiveness and uncertainty affect any expected-loss comparison.

Distinguish tolerated data loss from tolerated interruption.

A recovery point and restore time must both meet the stated targets.

A same-failure-domain snapshot alone does not cover loss of that domain.

Verify complete restore procedures and actual dependency behavior.