This policy provides a clear framework for recording and reviewing system activity, giving your business the essential visibility needed to ensure security, accountability, and operational integrity.
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Detect Threats Early: Monitor system logs for unauthorized access, malware alerts, and other indicators of compromise to catch attacks before they cause damage.
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Simplify Incident Investigation: Maintain a clear, unalterable audit trail to rapidly understand how a security incident occurred, what was affected, and how to respond.
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Ensure Accountability & Compliance: Create a traceable record of user actions to prove compliance with GDPR, NIS2, and DORA and show auditors who did what, and when.
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Maintain System Integrity: Protect logs from tampering, loss, or premature deletion, ensuring the records you rely on for investigations are accurate and trustworthy.
Read Full Overview
The Logging and Monitoring Policy - SME is a crucial tool for small and medium enterprises seeking to bolster their cybersecurity posture. This policy establishes clear, mandatory controls for logging and monitoring across all IT systems, a practice essential for detecting anomalies, responding to threats, and maintaining compliance with industry standards and regulations like ISO/IEC 27001:2022. By defining the types of events that must be logged, how logs are securely stored and reviewed, and the responsibilities of your team, this policy supports robust threat detection and enables effective forensic analysis. It is designed to ensure you can meet legal and regulatory obligations, including audit-readiness for GDPR, NIS2, and DORA.
What's Inside
- Purpose, Scope and Objectives
- Roles and Responsibilities
- Governance Requirements
- Log Review and Retention Schedules
- Policy Implementation Requirements
- Risk Treatment and Exceptions
- Enforcement and Compliance
- Review and Update Requirements
Built for Leaders, By Leaders
This policy translates a highly technical control into a practical and manageable process, giving you the visibility you need to protect your business. It was authored by a security leader to be a defensible framework that is practical to implement and stands up to auditor scrutiny, empowering you to take control of your security.
Authored by an expert holding:
Framework Compliance
🛡️ Supported Standards & Frameworks
This product is aligned with the following compliance frameworks, with detailed clause and control mappings.
| Framework | Covered Clauses / Controls |
|---|---|
| ISO/IEC 27001:2022 | Clause 8.1 |
| ISO/IEC 27002:2022 | Control 8.15Control 8.16Control 8.17 |
| NIST SP 800-53 Rev.5 | AU-2 to AU-12SI-4 |
| EU GDPR | Articles 5(1)(f), 32, 33 |
| EU NIS2 | Articles 21(2)(d), 23 |
| EU DORA | Articles 10, 15 |
| COBIT 2019 | DSS01.03, DSS05.02 |
Part of a Complete ISMS Toolkit
This policy is one of 37 documents in our complete toolkit. When implemented as a set, our framework helps you achieve comprehensive compliance across major standards.
100%
ISO 27001:2022
95%
NIST
88%
NIS2
75%
DORA
70%
GDPR
Related Policies
This foundational policy is directly linked to the following SME security policies to ensure comprehensive alignment and traceability across your security program.
Data Protection and Privacy Policy (P17S)
Ensures log data with personal info is managed in line with GDPR.
Network Security Policy (P21S)
Provides the foundation for capturing logs from firewalls, VPNs, and wireless.
Secure Development Policy (P24S)
Ensures application-specific logs are built into software design.
Incident Response Policy (P30S)
Relies on accurate log data to detect, analyze, and respond to incidents.
Time Synchronization Policy (P23S)
Ensures consistent timestamps for correlating logs during investigations.
About This Policy
A Logging and Monitoring Policy is a fundamental document that establishes a systematic approach to recording and reviewing events across your IT environment. For a Small or Medium-sized Enterprise (SME), effective logging is crucial for visibility into system activity, enabling you to detect security threats, investigate incidents, and troubleshoot operational issues. This policy defines what events should be logged, how logs should be protected, and how long they must be retained to ensure accountability.
By implementing this SME-focused logging and monitoring policy, your organization creates a verifiable audit trail essential for compliance. It ensures you can trace user actions, identify unauthorized access, and respond to security alerts in a timely manner. Adhering to this ISO 27001:2022-aligned policy not only strengthens your security posture but also fulfills key requirements under regulations like GDPR, DORA, and NIS2, which mandate the ability to monitor systems and detect potential data breaches.
