Laval (Quebec), April 15th, 2009. Gardien Virtuel Inc., leading IT security consultancy firm, announced today that it has received the ISO/CEI 27001 certification, becoming the first such company in Canada to receive the distinction. The certification audit was performed by the Canadian branch of Swiss organization SGS S.A. (Société Générale de Surveillance).

“Gardien Virtuel had to review its business practices to ensure compliance with the SGS's strict expectations. This distinction is the fruit of several months of hard work but the result is well worth it. Receiving the highest IT security level of certification in the world is something that I am very proud of,” said Patrick Boucher, Gardien Virtuel's President and Founder. “Now that we broke the ice for Canada in our industry, we are happy to pave the way for other companies and help them reach new heights in performance and quality. After all, offering better products and services to our customers was the main reason for going through with this process. Add to that the fact that we are confident to see our government as well as large corporations require ISO 27001 for all subcontractors in the near future just as it happened for ISO 9001, and the decision is easy to make,” concluded Boucher.

Any company that wishes to go through the ISO 27001 process must above all do an auto-evaluation of all its business practices to see if they are compliant with the certification's requirements and if not, it must correct the situation. Once this initial step completed, the company must get in touch with an authorized ISO-accredited organization such as SGS S.A. and submit itself to a rigorous corporate security audit. Published in 2005, the ISO 27001 certification concerns strictly IT security and describes the corporate compliance requirements that the applicant must adhere to when implementing an Information Security Management System (ISMS).