How Canva embarked on its cyber security maturity journey and achieved ISO 27001 Certification

Cyber security for start-ups: How Canva achieved ISO 27001 compliance without hindering culture or growth by looking beyond ‘just’ ISO 27001 certification for real security and risk management outcomes.

HIGHLIGHTS

Challenge

Canva wanted to establish a strong security foundation in an incredibly fast changing and growing company. ‘Bake-in’ security in a start-up culture and operations for security to scale with the business.

Solution

We had already worked with several tech giants, and was no stranger to the Canva way of working and understood well its values, culture and the importance of implementing a solution which preserved them.
Beyond our proven track record of implementing ISMS certified to ISO 27001, Canva chose to work with us because of our cultural fit, flexibility, and the shared ideology in achieving security and risk management outcomes without hindering business growth.

Results

  • Established a security roadmap with ownership at founders and senior leaders’ level.
  • Improved security controls with a company-wide focus on security.
  • Attained ISO 27001 certification.
“We needed someone who would take into account the state of Canva as it was before we started this project. Not only the state of our security and risk management maturity at the time, but also very importantly, the culture of the organisation. Privasec [Sekuro founding company] was very good at this. They had a high level of expertise, are very communicative and we had incredible engagement.” – Geoff Chiang, Security Governance, Risk & Compliance Manager, Canva

The Story

Cyber security for start-ups: How to achieve compliance without hindering culture or growth

Canva was looking beyond ‘just’ ISO 27001 certification for real security and risk management outcomes that would help the unicorn sustainably ‘bake-in’ security into everything they do without compromising its culture nor its growth.

Key objectives:

  1. Improve Canva’s security posture and maturity by establishing a lasting risk management framework;
  2. Implement security as a culture so that it is ‘baked-in’ in its operations and can inherently scale alongside the business;
  3. Increase the enterprise market credibility and trust by accelerating the security initiatives already in play;
  4. Toughen security ecosystem to reduce the likelihood of future information security.

Why ISO 27001 Certification?

Canva has over 60 million monthly active users across 190 countries who have collectively created over seven billion designs to date! Initially launched as a B2C platform, Canva quickly became the design application of choice for marketing and content creating teams within businesses, and now offers a fully-fledged enterprise platform for larger business users.
“We are really particular about positive security and risk management outcomes because that is what’s going to drive the growth in the future.” – Geoff Chiang, Security Governance, Risk & Compliance Manager, Canva
Housing and protecting its IP as well as its users’ data is mission-critical to Canva, which embarked on a significant security uplift journey at the back of a data breach in 2019. As part of this journey, Canva wanted to adopt a risk approach that would ‘bake-in’ security in its culture and operations. Given the rapid growth in cyber attacks and the ever-increasing footprint of Canva, Canva was also determined to demonstrate its security commitment to its users. Many of the professional users of Canva do require their suppliers and contractors demonstrate a secure environment as a mandatory requirement for doing business.

Canva’s Challenges:

“We had to build a risk management framework from the ground up. Once something’s in production, it’s in legacy and it takes effort to keep up with security that gets introduced after you’ve jumped into a technology.” Geoff Chiang, Security Governance, Risk & Compliance Manager, Canva
Think Silicon Valley fast-paced and agile technology company. That’s Canva. The challenge was to establish a strong security culture within a fast-growing company with a lot of competing priorities. With the constant change in an organisation that is continually building and incorporating technology at a rapid rate, there becomes a crucial need to ‘bake-in’ security in all operations so that it can grow and keep up with the pace of the business. Canva also has a critical mission to ensure that the increasingly growing user information being amassed daily is secured and personal information exposure is reduced to a minimum. Lastly, to enable its incredible growth, Canvanauts (the people working at Canva) had historically been given huge autonomy and agility. Canva needed to preserve that culture whilst at the same time introduce better security governance and oversight in its operations.

Our Solution for Canva

Sekuro’s governance approach is centred on the principle that ‘no two organisations are the same’. This means no two effective Information Security Management Systems (ISMS) are ever the same.

“As an organisation, we are based on very strong values of ownership, flexibility, and have an overall no-nonsense commitment that allows us to easily adapt to the working style at Canva,”

We worked with Canva to design an ISMS around this constant growth and change that the team at Canva thrives on, ensuring that the methodology was customised to fit the culture and precise needs of Canva and its operations. This was an essential step in the implementation process – “if the risk methodology does not fit with how the business is run, the staff will be unable execute, resulting in a near certain breakdown of the ISMS in the longer term”.

Implementing a system that every ‘Canvanaut’ will, and can, use themselves was also a key consideration. We typically offers our clients a Microsoft SharePoint ISMS portal which has been built and matured over years of practical security operations and auditing. This approach would not work with Canva, which needed something tailored to their existing productivity tools. We were already very familiar with the tools and technologies used by Canva, using many of these daily. In addition to the fact that Canva did not have to purchase any new security governance platform, Canva’s stakeholders were also much more willing to adopt the ISMS.

In conjunction with Cava, we conducted over 40+ interviews and workshops, from the new starters to the founders, to identify and formulate security risks at a level that Canva could manage, along with an actionable list of items which would work with the organisation, existing culture, processes and technology choices.

“The team at Canva has truly been inspirational both in eagerness to improve and in their dedication to get things done”

Results:

  • Canva implemented an ISMS specifically designed to best meet its ways of working and its ever-changing organisation
  • Security was given organisational level priority and is owned directly at the founder level
  • Canva achieved certification to ISO27001. We acted on behalf of Canva through the certification process
  • Canva successfully set up a team of security champions across the different group functions, ensuring all key business stakeholders are involved, and are having conversations about security.

Canva found it exceptionally helpful to have us guiding their team through the entire audit itself.

“Facing off to the auditor was essential”, Geoff remarked, “it was helpful to have someone who knew our organisation, and also what the auditor was looking for.”

“In a well-designed ISMS, everything flows naturally, driven by business need. You shouldn’t have to do anything for the sole purpose of compliance. If you do, not only are you wasting time and money, but you are potentially exposing yourself to a hard landing in the future.” Romain Rallu, Co-Founder and COO at Sekuro.

Setting the trend

In the few months since its certification and using a risk approach to manage security, Canva grew its security investments and security resources 5-fold, with no plan to slow down or stop. Some of the brightest security minds in the industry have joined the security group which now has a dedicated response and adversarial simulation capabilities. Security uplifts are now baked in both company-wide and team-level goals and every Canvanaut knows and understands why security is core to Canva’s business.

What is ISO 27001?

ISO 27001 is the international standard that sets out the specification for an information security management system (ISMS). It contains a set of best practices to allow organisations to implement a world class risk management system to strategise and coordinate their security investments whilst getting marketable recognition for it.
Many organisations, including governments, are now insisting that their suppliers and contractors demonstrate that they manage security in compliance with ISO 27001.

What does an ISMS do for you?

  • Greater security awareness across all levels of the organisation
  • Understanding and ownership of security risks by business leaders, and commitment to an actionable security improvement roadmap
  • Make easier investment decision with better business cases based on risks
  • Recognised certification & enhanced customer confidence and perception of the organisation
  • End to end visibility & centralised view of security risks
  • Translates cyber security problems into tangible business impacts

“We used the certification as a framework to prioritise security roadmap and have an external entity that holds Canva accountable for milestones defined.”
– Canva Engineering Leader

Implementation:

ISO 27001 clauses 4 to 10 prescribe the minimum requirements of the ISO 27001 standard for the establishment of an Information Security Management System (ISMS). It follows the continuous improvement cycle – Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) – which an organisation must establish in order to be able to go through certification.

  1. Plan – Identify Risk to the Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability (CIA) of assets
  2. Do – Put relevant controls in place
  3. Check – Audit the implementation for efficiency and effectiveness
  4. Act – Improve ineffective or inefficient controls

Sekuro #clientforlife

To design the best possible system, Sekuro begins by understanding the business environment, business objectives, constraints, values and culture. We then conduct an initial information risk assessment to identify the actions and priorities for managing information security risks. This highlights major gaps and areas for improvement, allowing us to create an associated and tailored risk treatment plan. Lastly, Sekuro helps our clients to remediate their gaps and executes an internal audit program to report on security control effectiveness, progress of risk remediation and provides assurance back to the business for review and action.

To ensure that its clients are fully prepared for its certification audit, Sekuro leverages the internal audit process to help stakeholders get familiarised and comfortable with the process. Sekuro also liaises with the chosen Certification Body to guide the entire process and acts on its client’s behalf during the certification audits.

ISO 27001 Lead Auditor
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Aidan Tudehope

Co-Founder of Macquarie Technology

Aidan Tudehope, Co-Founder of Macquarie Technology

Aidan is co-founder of Macquarie Telecom and has been a director since 1992. He is the Managing Director of Macquarie Government & Hosting Group with a focus on business growth, cyber security and customer satisfaction. 

Aidan has been responsible for the strategy and execution of the investment in Intellicentre 4 & 5 Bunkers, Macquarie Government’s own purpose-built Canberra data centre campus. This facility is leveraged to deliver Secure Cloud Services and Secure Internet Gateway.

With a unique pan-government view on the cyber security landscape, we are invested in leading the contribution from the Australian industry on all matters Cyber policy related.

Aidan holds a Bachelor of Commerce Degree.

James Ng

CISO, Insignia Financial

James Ng, CISO, Insignia Financial

James is a leader with a range of experience across various cyber security, technology risk and audit domains, bringing a global lens across a diverse background in financial services, telecommunications, entertainment, consulting and FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods). He is currently the General Manager – Cyber Security at Insignia Financial and most recently was at AARNet (Australia’s Academic and Research Network) where he oversaw a managed Security Operations Centre (SOC) capability for Australian universities. Prior to this James was the acting Chief Information Security Officer for Belong and led the cyber governance and risk team at Telstra.

Noel Allnutt

CEO, Sekuro

Noel Allnutt CEO | Sekuro

Noel is a driven and award-winning IT leader. He has a passion for developing great teams and accelerating client innovation, and in enabling organisations to create a secure and sustainable competitive advantage in the digital economy. Noel also hosts the ‘Building Resilience Podcast,’ which explores the world of sport and deconstructs the tools and ethos of world-class athletes that can help create growth and optimise business and life.

Audrey Jacquemart

Bid Manager, Sekuro

Audrey Jacquemart, Bid Manager, Sekuro

Audrey is an innovative cybersecurity professional with a versatile profile spanning across Product Management, Presales and Delivery. She has worked within organisations from start-ups to large international organisations in Europe and APAC before joining Sekuro.

Nicolas Brahim

Principal Consultant, CRP and OT

Nicolas Brahim, Principal Consultant, CRP and OT

Nico leads Sekuro’s Cyber Resilience Program and OT Cybersecurity, ensuring continuous support and effective program execution for our clients. With over a decade in the security industry, including the creation and leadership of several Security Programs for IT and OT across Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, Chile and the US, his core philosophy emphasises an equal balance of people, process, and technology in delivering actionable and simple solutions.

Trent Jerome

Chief Financial Officer, Sekuro

Trent Jerome

Trent is a seasoned CFO with over 30 years’ experience in Finance. Trent has broad experiences across Capital raises, debt financing, M&A and business transformation. He is a CPA and member of AICD. Trent works with Boards around risk and risk mitigation plans and assists Boards in navigating the risk mitigation versus cost conversation.

Ada Guan

CEO and Board Director, Rich Data Co

Ada Guan, CEO and Board Director, Rich Data Co

Ada is the CEO and Co-founder of Rich Data Co (RDC). RDC AI Decisioning platform provides banks the ability to make high-quality business and commercial lending decisions efficiently and safely. With over 20 years of global experience in financial services, software, and retail industries, Ada is passionate about driving financial inclusion at a global scale.

Before launching RDC in 2016, Ada led a Global Client Advisor team at Oracle Corporation, where she advised Board and C-level executives in some of the largest banks globally on digital disruption and fintech strategy. She also drove Oracle’s thought leadership in banking digital transformation for Global Key Accounts. Previously, Ada implemented a multi-million dollar program to deliver a mission-critical services layer for Westpac Bank in Australia and formulated the IT strategy that was the basis of an $800m investment program to transform Westpac’s Product and Operation division and complete the merger with St. George Bank. Ada is an INSEAD certified international director and holds an EMBA from the Australia Graduate School of Management, and a Master of Computer Engineering from the University of New South Wales, Australia. She also graduated from the Executive Insight Program at Michigan University Ross Business School and IESE Business School.

Megan Motto

Chief Executive Officer, Governance Institute of Australia

Megan Motto, CEO, Governance Institute of Australia

Megan Motto is Chief Executive Officer of Governance Institute of Australia, a national education provider, professional association and leading authority on governance and risk management. The Institute advocates on behalf of professionals from the listed, unlisted, public and not-for profit sectors.

Megan has over 25 years of experience with large associations, as a former CEO of Consult Australia, as well as holding significant positions in Australia’s built environment sector and business chambers.

She is currently a director of Standards Australia, a member of the ASIC Corporate Governance Consultative Panel and a councillor of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) where she chairs the Data, Digital and Cyber Security Forum.

Megan’s expertise spans governance, risk management, public policy and education. She holds a Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Education, a Masters of Communication Management and a Graduate Diploma of Corporate Governance and Risk Management. She is a Fellow of the Governance Institute of Australia, the Chartered Governance Institute and the Australian Institute of Company Directors and is also a member of Chief Executive Women. Megan is also an Honorary Life Trustee of the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) and was a 2014 recipient of the AFR/Westpac 100 Women of Influence.

Shamane Tan

Chief Growth Officer, Sekuro

Shamane Tan, Chief Growth Officer, Sekuro

Sekuro’s Chief Growth Officer, Shamane Tan, is passionate about uniting minds and experiences, excelling in aligning C-Suite and Board members with cyber security imperatives. As the author of “Cyber Risk Leaders,” she unravels executive communication nuances and distils C-Suite expectations. 

Her work extends to “Cyber Mayday and the Day After,” a roadmap for navigating crises by mining the wisdom of C-level executives from around the globe. It’s filled with interviews with managers and leaders who’ve braved the crucible and lived to tell the tale. Her most recent book, “Building a Cyber Resilience: A Cyber Handbook for Executives and Boards,” was featured on Forbes Australia’s top list of books for CEOs. 

Shamane has also founded a transcontinental cyber risk and executive meetup spanning Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, Singapore, the Philippines, and Tokyo, fostering mentorship, women’s empowerment and thought leadership. As a strong advocate for the importance of having a voice and helping others use theirs, Shamane Tan has spoken at TEDx and global conferences, including FS-ISAC, RSA, Silicon Valley, Fortune 500 and ASX companies. 

Recipient of the IFSEC Global Top 20 Cybersecurity Influencer award and named among the 40 under 40 Most Influential Asian-Australians, Shamane leverages her unique fusion of technical prowess and business acumen to help organisations progress on their security maturity journey.

David Gee

David Gee, CIO, CISO, NED, Board Advisor & Author

 

David Gee, CIO, CISO, NED, Board Advisor & Author

David has just retired in July 2024 and is building out his portfolio. He is an Advisor with Bain Advisory Network and also an Advisor to JS Careers (Cyber Recruitment) and Emertel (Software Commercialisation).

He is a seasoned technology executive with significant experience and has over 25 years’ experience in CIO and CISO roles across different industries and countries. At Macquarie Group David served as Global Head Technology, Cyber and Data Risk. Previously was CISO for HSBC Asia Pacific. His career as a CIO spans across multiple industries and geographies including – Metlife, Eli Lilly and Credit Union Australia. He was winner CIO of the Year 2014, at CUA where he successfully completed a significant Transformation of Core Banking, Online and Mobile Banking systems.

David is past Chairman for the FS-ISAC Strategy Committee and awarded Global Leaders Award in 2023 for his contributions to the cyber security industry. A regular conference keynote speaker and 150+ published articles for CIO Australia, Computerworld, iTnews and CSO (Cyber Security), David now writes for Foundry CIO.com and AICD.

His most recent book – the Aspiring CIO & CISO was published in June 2024 and David is writing his second – A Day in the Life of a CISO with a number of CISOs from around the world for 2025.

Naomi Simson

Co-founder, Big Red Group and Former Shark Tank Judge

Naomi Simson, Co-founder, Big Red Group

INTRODUCTION

For 25 years as an entrepreneur, Naomi Simson has been bringing people together whether it’s with her business experience, her speaking or writing. Passionate about small business and local community, Naomi is considered a home grown success story.

Naomi had a corporate career with Apple, KPMG, IBM and Ansett Australia prior to becoming an entrepreneur. She is a prolific blogger, podcaster and business commentator, and appeared as the #RedShark in four seasons of Shark Tank Australia and she appears regularly on ABC The Drum. She is a non-executive director at Big Red Group, Australian Payments Plus, Colonial First State and Weebit Nano, as well as the Cerebral Palsy Research Foundation and the University of Melbourne Business and Economics Faculty.

A true business leader and influencer, with more than 2.7 million LinkedIn followers, Naomi is Australia’s most followed person on the business networking platform. She has four seasons of her podcast ‘Handpicked’, and she has authored two best-selling books Live What You Love, and Ready to Soar, and is sought after speaker.

FULL BIO

For 25 years Naomi has been bringing people together whether it’s with her business experience, her speaking or writing. She is a strong advocate of business owners.

Known as an entrepreneur and business leader; following the growth of RedBalloon which she founded in 2001, Naomi co-founded the Big Red Group (BRG) in 2017.

Naomi had a corporate career with Apple, KPMG, IBM and Ansett Australia prior to becoming an entrepreneur. She is a prolific blogger, podcaster and business commentator, and appeared as the #RedShark in four seasons of Shark Tank Australia. She is a non-executive director at Big Red Group, Australian Payments Plus, Colonial First State and Weebit Nano. As well as the Cerebral Palsy Research Foundation and the University of Melbourne Business and Economics Faculty.

A true business leader and influencer, with more than 2.7 million LinkedIn followers, Naomi is Australia’s most followed person on the business networking platform. She has authored two best-selling books Live What You Love, and Ready to Soar, and is an engaging, humorous and insightful speaker. She has four seasons of her Podcast – Handpicked.

Naomi is relatable across a broad variety of audiences and topics, often drawing on her personal experiences to provide thoughtful and valuable views into topics; including the customer obsession, intentional leadership, growth mindset, personal development. She is a regular panellist on ABC The Drum.

Peter Ngo

Product Line Manager, Global Certifications, Palo Alto Networks

Peter Ngo | Sekuro

Peter leads the Commercial Cloud, Global Certifications organisation at Palo Alto Networks which oversees global cloud security compliance efforts to various frameworks and standards including IRAP, SOC 2, ISO, PCI, C5, ISMAP, and IRAP and more for 25+ cloud products.

He has held many roles over the years covering areas of IT Operations, and Governance, Risk, & Compliance (GRC) for a wide range of industries including technology, insurance, and manufacturing.

Peter holds various security and professional certifications, including the CCSP, CISSP, PCI ISA, CISA, CISM, CDPSE & ISO Lead Auditor, in addition to a Master of Science degree in Information Assurance. 

Jack Cross

CISO, QUT

Jack Cross | Sekuro

Jack Cross is an experienced business leader with expertise in digital technologies and risk management. Through a steadfast commitment to integrating people, processes, and technology, he champions the fight against cyber threats while mitigating organisational risks. 

Over the past 15 years, Jack has navigated diverse leadership roles within the Defence and Education sectors, honing his skills in steering multidisciplinary teams through intricate and sensitive technical landscapes. In addition to this experience, he holds numerous formal qualifications such as: a Master of Systems Engineering (Electronic Warfare); CISSP; and CISM certifications.

Nadene Serman

Global CTO, Infotrack

Nadene Serman | Sekuro

Nadene Serman is a leading IT executive with a proven track record spearheading first-of-its-kind technology and business transformation for some of the most prominent organisations globally and in Australia. As the Global Chief Technology Officer of InfoTrack, she is a key protagonist of innovation as an enabler of InfoTrack’s next stage growth. Her energy, commercial acuity and strategic capability have fueled her success.

Nadene leads with clarity, transparency and urgency, uniting people in complex, multi-layered technology and business execution, and go-to-market transformation and innovation. She tackles and resolves complex and seemingly intractable challenges while building support and collaboration – even in times of crisis. Her people-first, ‘think straight, talk straight’ approach makes her a formidable force.

John Doe

President Great Technology

Cyber Resilience Program | Sekuro

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