Speaking as someone who has been in the driver's seat for multiple ISO
27001, SOC 2, and PCI DSS audits:
ISO 27001 certification for Debian would, in my opinion, be mostly
pointless and would not bring nearly enough benefit to justify the
significant cost in money, time, and effort. Four reasons:
1) Debian's infosec practices are leaps and bounds above those of most
entities that have ISO 27001 certification. Getting audited will not
help Debian significantly improve or become significantly more secure.
2) Individuals and entities all over the world are already using Debian.
There is no evidence that Debian needs ISO 27001 certification to
continue being used and useful.
3) Debian having ISO 27001 certification will do nothing to prevent
supply chain attacks to its packages. There is nothing in Debian's
current processes, or in any process changes Debian might make to pass
an audit, that would have prevented the XZ Utils attack from making its
way into Debian. There are simply too many software packages from two
many sources in Debian to expect Debian to be responsible for vetting
every single one to make sure that its real upstream maintainers haven't
introduced malicious code.
4) Frankly, the primary reason any entity gets certified for ISO or SOC
or PCI or whatever is because it needs the certification to compete in
the marketplace. I don't think Debian has this problem.
jik
On 11/18/25 4:44 AM, Farruco wrote:
TL;DR: Does Debian (via SPI) have plans or interest in pursuing ISO 27001
certification for its development, maintenance, and operations? This
could bolster assurance for users amid supply chain risks.
Dear Debian Developers,
In an era of rising supply chain attacks (e.g., XZ Utils), downstream
users increasingly scrutinize the security of packaged software and of
the processes involved in their generation and maintenance. Debian not
only distributes an open source (non-commercial) product to the public
but also provides critical services to its developer community via the
project's IT infrastructure.
To strengthen and document their security posture, many of Debian's
peers undergo regular audits. ISO 27001 - a leading framework for
information security management systems (ISMS) - helps assess risks,
formalize controls and policies, and align internal processes with
relevant best practices. Examples include:
* Canonical:
https://canonical.com/blog/canonical-achieves-iso-27001-certification
Quote from Canonical: "The certification demonstrates alignment with
cybersecurity standards that will further safeguard open source products
and services for use in the most demanding enterprise environments."
* Red Hat:
https://access.redhat.com/compliance/isoiec-27001 - Covers key offerings
like OpenShift.
* SUSE:
https://www.suse.com/support/security/certifications/ – Their global
operations under ISO 27001.
* For contrast, Let's Encrypt:
It's not a legal entity (instead, it's an operation under the non-profit
corporation ISRG) and it lacks ISO 27001 certification, but meets annual
WebTrust audits required for publicly recognized CAs.
Debian, while not a legal entity, sits under SPI's non-profit corporate
umbrella, and ISO 27001 can scope to specific operations (per Clause
4.3). Therefore, certification could be issued to SPI but scoped to only
target Debian's development, maintenance, and operations.
Does the Debian Project have plans or interest in auditing/certifying
to ISO 27001? If not, are there alternative frameworks (e.g., SOC 2)
under consideration? I'd be happy to know.
