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
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.