Cybersecurity Database

Standards and frameworks · Governance and coordination

ASD ISM (September 2026) Information Security Manual

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Official text (free)

Summary

The Australian Signals Directorate manual is Australia’s reference framework for protecting IT and operational technology systems and the data they process. It opens with cyber security principles, grouped into the functions govern, identify, protect, detect and respond, and continues with thematic guidelines (roles, incidents, procurement and outsourcing, physical and personnel security, communications, ICT equipment, media, system hardening and monitoring, software development, networking, cryptography, gateways, data transfers) that contain the controls, each with an identifier and the classification levels it applies to. It also describes a six-step risk management process, from defining the system to authorising and monitoring it, drawn from NIST SP 800-37. Federal entities apply it under the Protective Security Policy Framework; it is also used by service providers, such as cloud providers, assessed for government use, by businesses and by critical infrastructure operators.

Reference
ASD ISM (September 2026)
Official title
Information Security Manual
Body
ASD
Type
Cybersecurity framework
Status
Published
Published
Edition
September 2026
Access to the text
Free
Sectors
Notes
The ISM is updated every three months (March, June, September, December): each edition replaces the previous one and comes with a document listing the controls added, amended or removed, so control identifiers and wording can change from one edition to the next. This entry refers to the September 2026 edition, the latest at the time of verification. The manual is free on cyber.gov.au, which also offers previous editions and a machine-readable version in OSCAL format.
Last verified
(verified via web)

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