Digital Resilience Redefined: Unpacking the Long-Overdue ISO 27031 Update

A CTO/CIO Guide to the Newly Revised ICT Readiness for Business Continuity Standard

After an astonishing 14-year gap, the International Organisation for Standardisation has finally released ISO/IEC 27031:2025, the second edition of its ICT Readiness for Business Continuity standard. This extensive revision comes at a critical time when organisations face increasingly complex digital threats and dependencies. As CTOs and CIOs responsible for ensuring business resilience, understanding this update is not just about compliance—it's about competitive advantage and organisational survival.

The 14-Year Gap: What Took So Long?

The original ISO/IEC 27031 was published in 2011 and has remained unchanged until now. This gap is particularly striking considering that ISO 27001—the cornerstone information security management standard—received a significant update in 2022. The delay in updating ISO/IEC 27031 reflects a disconnect between rapidly evolving technology landscapes and standardisation efforts.

During these 14 years, we've witnessed:

• The mass migration to cloud services is fundamentally changing ICT dependency models
• The rise of sophisticated ransomware and supply chain attacks
• The COVID-19 pandemic is forcing unprecedented business continuity challenges
• The emergence of AI and automation in both threat landscapes and defensive capabilities

This begs the question: why wasn't this critical standard updated alongside ISO 27001:2022? The answer likely lies in the complexity of addressing modern ICT dependencies and the challenges of creating consensus across international stakeholders.

Key Changes in ISO/IEC 27031:2025

The 2025 revision brings several significant changes that reflect modern business continuity challenges:

1. Restructured Framework

The document has been completely restructured to provide a more logical flow from governance through implementation to testing and management review. This makes it considerably more accessible for organisations implementing the standard for the first time.

2. Clarified Scope

The scope has been refined to explicitly focus on how ICT departments plan and prepare to contribute to organisational resilience objectives. This clarification helps align ICT continuity planning with broader business objectives.

3. Enhanced Technical Content

The standard now includes expanded guidance in several critical areas:

• Risk Management and Controls (Section 6.4): More comprehensive approaches to identifying and mitigating ICT-specific risks
• Incident Management Integration (Section 6.5): Stronger connections between incident response and business continuity
• BCM Strategy Alignment (Section 6.6): Clearer guidance on ensuring ICT strategies support broader business continuity goals
• Strategy Options (Section 9.2): More detailed exploration of available continuity strategies
• Technological Solutions (Section 10.1.5): Updated guidance reflecting modern recovery technologies

4. Cloud Services Recognition

Perhaps most importantly, the standard now explicitly acknowledges the "increasing dominance of Internet-based ICT services (cloud ICT services)" and how this has fundamentally changed preparedness from "relying on internal processes to a reliance on the quality and robustness of services from other organisations."

How ISO/IEC 27031:2025 Compares to Other Frameworks

While ISO standards provide internationally recognised frameworks, they're not the only guidance available. Here's how ISO/IEC 27031:2025 compares to other prominent frameworks:

NIST Cybersecurity Framework

The NIST framework takes a broader approach to cybersecurity but includes recovery as one of its five core functions. ISO/IEC 27031:2025 provides more detailed, ICT-specific recovery guidance that complements NIST's higher-level approach. Organisations following NIST can specifically use ISO 27031 to strengthen their recovery capabilities.

NCSC Guidance

The UK's National Cyber Security Centre offers practical incident response and recovery guidance, but it's less formalised than ISO standards. ISO/IEC 27031:2025 provides the structured framework that the NCSC guidance often assumes organisations already have in place. The two approaches work well together—NCSC for practical implementation advice and ISO for governance structure.

Business Continuity Institute Good Practice Guidelines

The BCI guidelines cover broader business continuity but lack the ICT-specific focus of ISO 27031. Organisations following BCI guidelines will find ISO 27031:2025 provides the technical depth their ICT departments need for effective implementation.

Why Following an ISO-Aligned Structure Makes Business Sense

For CTOs and CIOs, aligning with ISO/IEC 27031:2025 offers several strategic advantages:

1. Comprehensive Risk Management

The standard's structured approach ensures you identify and address all critical ICT dependencies and vulnerabilities. This systematic process helps prevent costly oversights that could lead to extended downtime or data loss.

2. Stakeholder Confidence

Demonstrating alignment with international standards provides assurance to boards, customers, and partners that your organisation takes business resilience seriously. This is particularly valuable when responding to security questionnaires from potential clients or during procurement processes.

3. Regulatory Alignment

While not always explicitly required by regulations, ISO alignment often satisfies the intent of various regulatory requirements around business continuity and information security. This can streamline compliance efforts across multiple regulatory frameworks.

4. Improved Recovery Capabilities

The standard's focus on testing and continuous improvement ensures that recovery capabilities remain effective as technology and threats evolve. This translates to reduced downtime and financial impact when incidents occur.

5. Supply Chain Resilience

The updated standard recognises cloud dependencies, helping organisations better manage third-party risks—an increasingly critical aspect of business resilience as supply chains become more digitally interconnected.

Implementation Challenges: Where Organisations Typically Struggle

Despite the benefits, implementing ISO/IEC 27031 presents several challenges:

1. Resource Constraints

Developing and maintaining comprehensive ICT continuity plans requires significant time and expertise. Many organisations struggle to allocate sufficient resources, especially when competing with other priorities.

2. Technical Complexity

Modern ICT environments involve complex interdependencies between on-premises systems, cloud services, and third-party providers. Mapping these dependencies and developing effective recovery strategies can be daunting.

3. Testing Limitations

Thoroughly testing recovery plans often requires simulating disruptions that organisations are reluctant to risk in production environments. This leads to untested assumptions that may fail during actual incidents.

4. Organisational Silos

Effective ICT continuity requires collaboration between technical teams, business units, and executive leadership. Organizational silos often impede this collaboration, resulting in misaligned priorities and incomplete planning.

The Value of Independent Expertise

This is where independent expertise becomes invaluable. As an independent consultancy, Secure Step Forward offers several unique advantages in implementing ISO/IEC 27031:2025:

1. Objective Assessment

Without the biases that internal teams might have, we provide honest evaluations of your current ICT readiness and identify gaps that might otherwise be overlooked or downplayed.

2. Cross-Industry Perspective

Our experience across multiple sectors allows us to bring best practices and innovative approaches that might not be apparent within a single organisation or industry.

3. Specialised Expertise

While your internal teams excel at running your business systems, our specialists focus exclusively on governance, risk, and compliance. This specialised knowledge ensures nothing is missed in your continuity planning.

4. Implementation Acceleration

Our established methodologies and templates can significantly reduce the time required to develop and implement effective ICT continuity plans, allowing your team to focus on their core responsibilities.

5. Stakeholder Facilitation

As neutral third parties, we can effectively facilitate discussions between technical teams and business leadership to ensure alignment on priorities, resources, and acceptable risks.

Next Steps: Ensuring Your ICT Readiness

As you consider how ISO/IEC 27031:2025 applies to your organisation, we recommend the following steps:

1. Gap Assessment: Evaluate your current ICT continuity capabilities against the updated standard to identify areas for improvement.
2. Dependency Mapping: Document critical business processes and their ICT dependencies, including cloud services and third-party providers.
3. Strategy Review: Assess whether your recovery strategies align with business requirements and the updated standard's guidance.
4. Testing Enhancement: Develop more comprehensive testing approaches that validate recovery capabilities without disrupting production environments.
5. Independent Review: Consider an independent review of your ICT continuity plans to identify blind spots and improvement opportunities.

Conclusion: Beyond Compliance to Competitive Advantage

The release of ISO/IEC 27031:2025 after such a long gap reminds us that business continuity standards must evolve alongside technology and threats. For forward-thinking CTOs and CIOs, this update represents a compliance exercise and an opportunity to strengthen organisational resilience in an increasingly uncertain digital landscape.

By aligning with this updated standard and leveraging independent expertise, you can transform ICT continuity from a necessary cost centre into a strategic advantage that protects revenue, reputation, and customer trust when disruptions inevitably occur.

Secure Step Forward provides tailored strategies to ensure compliance, reduce operational risks, and drive business resilience. To book an independent review of your ICT readiness for business continuity, visit www.securestepforward.com or contact us directly.