A.5.6 Contact with Special Interest Groups
What is this control?
ISO 27001 control A.5.6 Contact with Special Interest Groups ensures the organisation maintains appropriate membership and contact with special interest groups (SIGs), professional bodies, and security forums to stay informed of the latest security advice, threats, vulnerabilities, and best practices relevant to its technology stack. This includes monitoring Microsoft MSRC Security Intelligence, Fortinet FortiGuard, CIS, SANS Institute, National Cyber Security Hub, and vendor-specific security bulletins.
How to implement in Microsoft 365
Implement A.5.6 by establishing a register of approved special interest groups with listed purposes and subscription status. Monitor Microsoft 365 Service Health notifications via Microsoft 365 Admin Center and Graph API using ServiceHealth.Read.All permission. Track Message Center security-related posts using ServiceMessage.Read.All permission, ensuring posts are received within the last 30 days.
Subscribe to Microsoft Defender Threat Intelligence for threat articles and indicators of compromise. Maintain a vendor security bulletin log documenting receipt and review of advisories. Require CISO approval for all formal organisational memberships and non-public forum participation.
What an auditor looks for
Auditors will verify that a formal SIG register exists with listed groups, purpose of contact, and subscription status. They will check that active Graph API access to Service Health data is configured and operational. Auditors will review evidence of security Message Center posts received within the last 30 days.
They will verify Threat Intelligence subscription status and consumption evidence showing threat articles being reviewed. Auditors will examine the vendor bulletin review log with documented actions taken and verify CISO approval records for SIG memberships.