The Importance of ISO 27001 Certification for Research Support Software
Over the past several years, research-driven organizations spanning academia, pharmaceuticals, government, and more have increasingly transitioned paper-based research administration activities and offline tasks to digital applications housed in the cloud. This includes the more than 50,000 users who rely on a-tune’s research compliance and animal research facility management software to:
- Ensure compliance with region-specific regulations around the world
- Save time and money with accelerated task completion and expense recapture
- Streamline operations with centralized access to information across research functions
- Actively support the 3Rs across facility and animal care operations
While confidence in the security of cloud-based data has also grown in recent years, variability in the level of security across different research administration and support applications is still high. These differences can persist across protection measures taken, infrastructure, processes, and other areas.
Organizations that are considering moving some or all of their research management and administration functions to the cloud should ensure that the application and provider they select has proven it meets the criteria for robust information security management. ISO 27001 certification provides assurance that an application or provider has achieved that threshold.
What is ISO 27001 certification?
ISO 27001 is a set of rigorous standards and requirements for information security management systems. Per ISO, using them enables organizations “to manage the security of assets such as financial information, intellectual property, employee details or information entrusted by third parties.” Key elements include:
- Security – infrastructure, event response, access management, data protection, etc.
- Availability – power redundancy, temperature monitoring and control, fire detection, etc.
- Processing integrity – backups, file integrity monitoring, modification protection, etc.
- Confidentiality – agreements, authorization, encryption, firewalls, etc.
- Privacy – information retention and disposal
There are several reasons why securing research-related is critical. These include protection of intellectual property, providing evidence of compliance, and avoiding a wide array of other financial and reputational risk factors. Organizations should not assume that internal IT functions ensure that they will not fall prey to these issues.
The Importance of ISO 27001 Certification for a-tune
Nothing holds greater importance for us than the protection of our client’s information. That’s why a-tune invested the time, energy, and resources required to achieve ISO 27001 certification for our solutions. Our clients continue to conduct research that contributes to improved health outcomes and quality of life for all of us around the world. That endeavor deserves the confidence that applications supporting it meet the highest standards in information management security.
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