Annex A 5.30: ICT Readiness for Business Continuity

Annex A 5.30 requires you to prove your ICT services can support your business continuity objectives during disruption, not just that you have a BC plan on paper. Operationalize it by mapping critical business services to ICT dependencies, setting recovery targets, implementing resilience measures, and testing failover and recovery with documented results and corrective actions. ¹

Key takeaways:

• Map critical services to ICT dependencies, recovery targets, and minimum viable configurations. ¹
• Build and test ICT continuity capabilities (backup, restore, failover, access, monitoring) and retain evidence of outcomes and fixes. ¹
• Treat third parties and cloud/SaaS as first-class ICT dependencies with contract, testing, and assurance evidence. ¹

“Annex a 5.30: ict readiness for business continuity requirement” is where many ISO 27001 programs get uncomfortable, because auditors look for operational proof, not intent. A business continuity plan, DR diagram, or an annual tabletop alone rarely demonstrates ICT readiness. Annex A 5.30 pushes you to show that the technology stack (applications, infrastructure, identity, network, endpoints, monitoring, and supporting third parties) can recover to meet the business’ continuity needs. ¹

For a Compliance Officer, CCO, or GRC lead, the fastest route is to turn 5.30 into a small set of testable statements: “We know what is critical,” “We know what it depends on,” “We have recovery targets,” “We have technical capabilities aligned to those targets,” and “We test and fix gaps.” This page is written to help you build that chain of evidence without boiling the ocean, and to make it auditable in a repeatable way with recurring evidence capture. ¹

What Annex A 5.30 means in plain English

Annex A 5.30 expects your organization to ensure ICT continuity and recovery capabilities are in place and ready to support business continuity requirements. Practically: you must know what technology is required for critical services, set recovery expectations, implement resilience, and validate recovery through tests with recorded outcomes. ¹

What auditors commonly “translate” this into:

• Your BC requirements drive ICT recovery design (not the other way around). ¹
• You can demonstrate readiness with evidence: dependencies, targets, runbooks, test results, and remediation tracking. ¹

Regulatory text

Provided excerpt: “ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A control 5.30 implementation expectation (ICT Readiness for Business Continuity).” ¹

Operator interpretation: You need an auditable, repeatable way to confirm that ICT (systems, services, and supporting resources) can continue or be recovered to meet the continuity needs of the business. Evidence must show design (plans, architecture, targets), operation (monitoring, backups, access), and verification (tests and fixes). ¹

Who it applies to (and when it matters most)

Entity scope: Any organization implementing ISO/IEC 27001, especially service organizations where customer delivery depends on system availability and recoverability. ²

Operational contexts that raise the bar:

• Cloud-first environments with many managed services and unclear shared-responsibility boundaries. ¹
• Heavy third-party reliance (SaaS, hosting, payment processors, call centers, MSPs). Third parties become part of your recovery path. ¹
• High change velocity (CI/CD) where a DR design goes stale quickly unless you operationalize ownership and testing. ¹

What you actually need to do (step-by-step)

Use this as a build order that produces auditor-friendly artifacts as you go.

1) Define “critical” from the business lens

• Identify critical business services/products and the business impact of disruption (financial, customer, safety, legal). ²
• For each critical service, define continuity requirements in operational terms (for example: max tolerable downtime; minimum service levels; data freshness expectations). Keep the language business-owned even if ICT helps draft it. ¹

Output: Critical services register with business owners and continuity requirements. ²

2) Map each critical service to ICT dependencies

Create a dependency map that is specific enough to test:

• Applications and components (frontend, API, batch jobs, queues). ²
• Data stores and integrations (databases, object storage, ETL, third-party APIs). ²
• Identity and access (SSO/IdP, MFA, PAM, break-glass accounts). ¹
• Infrastructure (cloud accounts/subscriptions, regions, network connectivity, DNS, certificates, KMS/HSM). ²
• Operational tooling (monitoring/alerting, ticketing/on-call, logging). ²
• Third parties required to operate or recover (SaaS admin access, MSP support, telecom). ¹

Output: Service-to-ICT dependency maps and an “ICT components criticality” list. ¹

3) Set ICT recovery targets aligned to continuity needs

Convert continuity needs into ICT recovery targets per service/system:

• Recovery time expectations for restoring service.
• Recovery point expectations for data loss tolerance.
• Minimum viable configuration (what must work first). ¹

Practical control tip: If you cannot justify a target to a business owner, it will not survive audit scrutiny. Capture sign-off. ²

Output: Approved recovery targets, scoped per service/system, with named owners. ¹

4) Implement ICT continuity and recovery capabilities

Build capabilities based on the targets and dependency map:

• Backups and restores: Define backup scope, encryption, retention approach, and restore procedures; validate restores. ²
• Resilience/failover: Redundancy for critical components, alternate regions/zones where justified, and tested failover methods. ²
• Access during disruption: Break-glass procedures, offline access considerations, and secure storage for emergency credentials. ¹
• Runbooks: Stepwise recovery runbooks that match the dependency map (DNS, keys, certificates, database recovery order). ²
• Monitoring and detection: Ensure you can detect disruption quickly and confirm restoration (health checks, synthetic monitoring). ²
• Third-party readiness: Contractual commitments where feasible, escalation paths, and documented recovery support roles. ¹

Output: Implemented controls plus runbooks and ownership model (RACI). ¹

5) Test recovery, capture results, and fix gaps

Auditors look for executed tests with outcomes:

• Perform scenario-based recovery tests (restore, failover, loss of identity provider, loss of key management, third-party outage). ¹
• Record what happened, what met targets, what failed, and what changed afterward. ²
• Track remediation to closure with risk acceptance where you cannot meet targets. ²

Output: Test plans, test execution evidence, after-action reports, tickets/changes, and risk acceptances. ¹

6) Operationalize “recurring evidence capture”

Annex A 5.30 fails most often because teams cannot prove control operation over time. Implement a cadence:

• Scheduled backup restore validation evidence. ²
• Periodic runbook review and update evidence tied to system changes. ²
• Recurring continuity tests and remediation tracking. ¹

How Daydream fits naturally: Daydream can run the control as a program: map Annex A 5.30 to owners, define evidence checklists per system, and collect recurring artifacts (test results, approvals, remediation) so you do not rebuild the audit trail each cycle. ¹

Required evidence and artifacts to retain (audit-ready list)

Maintain these artifacts in a controlled repository with version history:

• Critical services register and continuity requirements with business owner approval. ²
• ICT dependency maps per critical service (including third parties). ¹
• Recovery targets and rationale, plus approval/sign-off. ²
• DR/BC technical runbooks (restore order, credentials, DNS, keys/certs, communications). ²
• Backup configuration summaries and restore validation results. ²
• Resilience/failover design documentation for in-scope systems. ²
• Test plans, execution logs/screenshots, after-action reports, and lessons learned. ¹
• Remediation tickets/changes and risk acceptances signed by accountable leaders. ²
• Third-party continuity assurances where applicable (contract clauses, support commitments, escalation paths, status-page dependencies). ¹

Common exam/audit questions and hangups

Auditors tend to drill into traceability and proof:

• “Show me how business continuity requirements translate into ICT recovery targets for this customer-facing service.” ²
• “Prove that backups restore within your stated target for a representative system.” ²
• “What happens if your IdP is down? Show the runbook and evidence you tested it.” ²
• “Which third parties are required to recover, and what assurance do you have they can support recovery?” ¹
• “Where is the evidence that failures found in tests are tracked to closure?” ²

Frequent implementation mistakes (and how to avoid them)

Mistake	Why it fails audits	Fix
Treating BC as a document-only exercise	No operational proof of readiness	Require executed technical tests and remediation records. 2
One generic DR plan for everything	Targets and dependencies differ by service	Create service-level dependency maps and scoped runbooks. 1
Backups exist but restores aren’t validated	You cannot prove recoverability	Schedule restore validation and retain evidence. 2
Ignoring identity, keys, DNS, certificates	These often block recovery	Put these dependencies into runbooks and test scenarios. 2
Third parties left out of recovery design	Your recovery path depends on them	Inventory third-party dependencies and document commitments/escalations. 1
Tests happen, but no corrective action	Findings repeat; readiness erodes	Track actions to closure or document risk acceptance. 2

Enforcement context and risk implications

ISO 27001 is a certifiable standard; the “enforcement” mechanism is certification assessment outcomes, customer due diligence failures, and contractual consequences rather than fines tied directly to Annex A 5.30. The operational risk is straightforward: if ICT cannot recover to business requirements, you face service interruption, data loss, regulatory notifications triggered by outages or security incidents, and customer churn. ²

Practical 30/60/90-day execution plan

First 30 days (stabilize scope and ownership)

• Confirm in-scope critical services and name accountable business and ICT owners. ²
• Build a first-pass service-to-ICT dependency map for the highest-impact services, including third parties. ¹
• Inventory existing runbooks, backups, monitoring, and prior test artifacts; identify evidence gaps. ²

Next 60 days (set targets and close obvious gaps)

• Agree recovery targets per service/system and obtain sign-off. ²
• Update runbooks to match real dependencies (identity, keys, DNS, third parties). ²
• Run a restore-focused technical test for representative systems; document results and open remediation items. ²

Next 90 days (prove readiness and make it repeatable)

• Execute at least one end-to-end recovery exercise per top critical service (failover/restore plus validation). ¹
• Close or formally risk-accept gaps against targets; document compensating controls. ²
• Implement recurring evidence capture (calendar cadence, owners, evidence repository, review workflow) so next audit is retrieval, not reconstruction. ¹

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Annex A 5.30 require a full disaster recovery site?

Annex A 5.30 requires ICT readiness to meet business continuity needs; the specific design (secondary site, multi-region, restore-from-backup) depends on your recovery targets and dependencies. You must prove the chosen design works through documented testing. ¹

What’s the minimum evidence an auditor will accept?

You need traceability from critical services to ICT dependencies, documented recovery targets, and executed tests with results and remediation. A plan without test evidence usually leaves a control operation gap. ¹

How do we handle SaaS and cloud providers we can’t “fail over” ourselves?

Treat them as ICT dependencies and document your continuity approach: alternate processes, alternate providers where feasible, escalation paths, and customer communications. Retain third-party assurance and your internal response/runbooks as evidence. ¹

Are tabletop exercises enough for 5.30?

Tabletop exercises help validate roles and decision-making, but Annex A 5.30 typically requires technical proof such as restore tests or controlled failover tests for critical systems. Pair tabletop outcomes with technical test artifacts and tracked fixes. ²

Who should own Annex A 5.30, Security, IT Ops, or BCM?

Make ownership shared: the business owns continuity requirements, IT/SRE owns recovery implementation, and GRC owns governance, evidence, and audit readiness. Auditors will still expect named owners per system and per runbook. ²

How do we keep evidence from going stale after big releases?

Tie runbook review, dependency map updates, and recovery testing triggers to change management for in-scope systems. Store artifacts with version history and ensure each test references the current architecture. ²

Footnotes

1. ISO/IEC 27001 overview; ISMS.online Annex A control index

2. ISO/IEC 27001 overview