ISO 27001:2022 Deadline Approaching: Are You Ready for the Cyber Threat Intelligence Shift?

The Compliance Clock Is Ticking, And This Is Your Opportunity

If you're still operating under the ISO/IEC 27001:2013 standard, the coming weeks are crucial. You're not alone. Many security leaders are managing this transition under tight deadlines. As we enter the final phase of ISO 27001:2022 compliance, I've been reflecting on insights from conversations with leaders across industries.

There are about eight weeks left to complete your transition audit by July 31, 2025. After October 31, 2025, the 2013 certification will no longer be valid. This isn't just a deadline, it's an opportunity to act with clarity and reinforce the trust your clients and partners place in your security posture.

Rather than viewing this as routine compliance, forward-thinking security leaders are using the transition as a catalyst to strengthen their security operations. Organizations that approach this strategically stand to not only meet compliance requirements but also significantly enhance their security maturity.

Why Does ISO 27001:2022 Put Cyber Threat Intelligence Front and Center

ISO 27001 has long been the gold standard for information security management. It's a strategic signal that your organization takes cybersecurity seriously at a time when threat landscapes are evolving at a dizzying pace.

ISO 27001 remains one of the most widely accepted and respected frameworks for demonstrating that your systems are secure, your processes are controlled, and your teams are ready to respond. The 2022 revision goes even further by emphasizing resilience and cyber threat intelligence-led security. It's not just an update, it reflects how modern cybersecurity truly operates. While the 2013 version focused on documentation and static controls, the 2022 version prioritizes operational security and threat-informed decision-making. 

The latest standard acknowledges what practitioners have long understood: effective security depends on proactive, informed action based on a cyber threat intelligence program that adapts to the risks your organization faces.

Control 5.7: The Annex That Changed Everything

One of the most important updates in ISO 27001:2022 is the introduction of Control 5.7 in Annex A, which focuses on threat intelligence. This is more than just collecting raw data or maintaining static threat lists. The Annex emphasizes turning threat intelligence from raw data into actionable insights that reduce risk for your organization, your customers, and your third-party partners.

Control 5.7 offers clear guidance: focus on how you operationalize cyber threat intelligence to drive real-time security decisions. This means integrating intelligence feeds into your security operations, enabling proactive detection, and accelerating your incident response efforts. It's about transforming passive threat data into real-time active defense.

Compliance Isn’t About Ticking Boxes Anymore 

The modern security landscape demands more than documentation and periodic audits. From frameworks like the NIST Cybersecurity Framework to regulatory initiatives like DORA, resilience is now the central focus, and ISO 27001:2022 aligns squarely with this shift. Today's compliance environment rewards organizations that think beyond checkbox exercises.

Whether you're aligning with NIST, preparing for DORA, or managing multiple standards, the underlying principle remains consistent: resilience through intelligence.

Successful security leaders are asking different questions now. Instead of "How do we meet the minimum requirements?", they're asking "How do we build capabilities that serve multiple compliance needs while genuinely improving our security posture?" This shift in perspective transforms compliance from a cost center into a strategic investment.

When threat intelligence becomes embedded in your operational DNA, it simultaneously serves compliance requirements, improves incident response times, enhances risk visibility, and supports executive decision-making. Control 5.7 reinforces this shift. From my experience working with security teams across various sectors, the most successful implementations of this control share common characteristics: treating threat intelligence not as a separate function but as the connective tissue that enhances every aspect of their security operations from vulnerability prioritization to incident response and risk assessment.

What to Look for in Solutions: Meeting Control 5.7 Requirements

If you're evaluating threat intelligence solutions for ISO 27001:2022 compliance, focus on capabilities that demonstrate end-to-end operational intelligence rather than just data collection. Here's what matters most for Control 5.7:

• Unified Threat Intelligence Management: Avoid fragmented tools that silo data across different platforms. Your solution should consolidate threat feeds, contextual analysis, and actionable insights into a single pane of glass that your teams can actually use for decision-making. This unified approach makes it easier to demonstrate to auditors how intelligence flows through your organization and influences security operations.
• Ability to Operationalize Threat Intelligence Across Your Security Stack: Intelligence that sits in reports without driving action doesn't meet Control 5.7 requirements. Your platform must demonstrate how threat intelligence directly influences vulnerability management decisions, incident response procedures, and security monitoring rules. Look for platforms that show clear workflows from intelligence collection to operational action, with audit trails documenting how intelligence informed specific security decisions.
• High ROI from Your Existing Stack: Your threat intelligence platform should enhance your current cybersecurity investments rather than create additional operational complexity. Look for platforms with configurable automation rules capabilities and pre-built integrations for Security Information and Event Management (SIEM), Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response (SOAR), endpoint protection, cloud security, vulnerability management, and incident response tools. The goal is showing auditors that threat intelligence enhances your existing controls rather than operating in isolation.
• Out-of-the-Box Integrations: Seamless ingestion from feeds and direct actioning into detection and response tools is essential for meeting compliance timelines. Don't waste months on building custom integrations from scratch when auditors want to see operational intelligence capabilities quickly. Look for platforms that can demonstrate immediate integration with your existing security infrastructure.
• Built-in Feeds and Enrichment: To accelerate your timeline and meet Control 5.7's requirements for relevant intelligence, look for platforms with pre-bundled threat feeds and enrichment capabilities. The platform should validate and contextualize threat data to ensure relevance to your specific industry, geography, and threat profile. This eliminates the need to shop for add-ons after implementation while ensuring compliance-ready intelligence operations.
• Collaborative Prioritization: Cyber threat Intelligence is only as good as your team's ability to act on it across different functions. Look for tools that enable cross-team collaboration between security analysts, incident responders, and risk assessors, helping prioritize threats by business impact internally as well as with external stakeholders. 

To bring all of this together, your CTI platform must have built-in AI and automation capabilities. Manual effort alone can’t keep up with the speed or scale of modern threats. Automation is now critical to meet the timeliness requirements of Control 5.7. AI-powered analytics should dynamically correlate threats, uncover patterns, and prioritize alerts based on your organization’s context. This reduces operational overhead while accelerating response and ensuring consistent, auditable decisions across your threat intelligence processes.

Don’t Wait for Audits to Catch Up 

Falling behind on ISO 27001:2022 compliance may seem like a mountain of work, but it doesn’t have to be overwhelming. The key is focusing on what matters most: cyber threat intelligence, especially as required by Control 5.7, which can be your force multiplier.

If you’re still navigating the ISO 27001:2022 landscape, now is the time to adjust your approach. Engage cybersecurity experts who understand the updated requirements and make cyber threat intelligence a core part of your compliance program, and not just an add-on. Done right, this approach helps you pass audits, strengthens resilience, reduces risk, and builds lasting trust with stakeholders.

If you’d like to explore how cyber threat intelligence can support both compliance and operational security, connect with Cyware’s cybersecurity experts who are guiding organizations through this transition.