Re: 27001 in automotive ?
When ISO 27001 first came out many of my audit colleagues and I assumed that it would likely only affect banks, credit card companies, hospitals, etc. But the more we thought about it and discussed info security with our automotive clients, we came to realize it is profoundly relevant to the auto industry. Many of my automotive supplier clients have design, financial, production, personal and scheduling information that is very sensitive. They certainly don't want proprietary design info getting into the wrong hands - many suppliers have considerable information about their customer's processes and products that needs to be protected.
A couple of years ago one of my automotive clients had a denial of service attack right after I mentioned ISO 27001 in an opening EMS audit meeting. They lost all communications with one of their major customers for several days due to the actions of a digruntled former employee who apparently still had access to their systems.
I believe Toyota is staring to survey their suppliers regarding info security, so I think we will soon see more info security requirements in North America. Right now ISO 27001 is very big in Japan - see the latest ISO survey statistics.