Governance and International Alignment

An industry standard, as opposed to national or government standards, are often created out of necessity by the industry stakeholders, and typically guides and certifies best practices within a specific sector.

In the case of SMB1001, DSI’s stakeholders including experts from the Steering Committee and the Standards and Certification Oversight Board, aims to address a gap which cannot be serviced by current standards bodies tied down by slow, bureaucratic processes which are not aligned to the pace of the cyber threats faced by small and medium-sized businesses. For each dynamic standard, DSI and its Dynamic Standard Certifiers operate with a robust, industry-driven governance structure, which sets it apart from government-owned or national standards.

Unlike traditional regulatory bodies that often impose slow, bureaucratic processes taking years to reach consensus, SMB1001 is built for agility and real-time adaptation to industry needs. This allows businesses to remain competitive in a rapidly changing market.

With thousands of entities certified or certifying against it, SMB1001 is gaining significant adoption traction and becoming a key benchmark for small businesses looking to demonstrate cyber maturity to their customers and industry.

Each dynamic standard in DSI, e.g., SMB1001, is governed by a transparent and independent governance structure, ensuring it meets the demands of businesses and addresses fast-evolving cyber threats while maintaining the integrity of the certification process. This governance includes: Dynamic Standard Steering Committee and Standard and Certification Oversight Board.

The governance structure of SMB1001 is similar to other prominent industry standards such as IETF, PCI, OMG, and W3C, which are managed by expert bodies rather than government regulators. These models help ensure standards are continuously updated and relevant to market needs.

Dynamic Standard Steering Committee: Each standard’s steering committee is composed of industry leaders, this committee provides strategic oversight to ensure SMB1001 evolves in line with market and threat changes, technological advancements, and the evolving needs of businesses.

Standard and Certification Oversight Board: Overseeing the standards’ steering committees, this body ensures the certification process across all dynamic standards in DSI remain fair, rigorous, and unbiased, maintaining the integrity of the standard and alignment to global auditing best practices while being responsive to industry feedback.

Unlike government-owned or national standards that are tied to ISO CAB (Conformity Assessment Body) accreditation, and as an international organization, the international SMB1001 operates independently of governmental frameworks.

While government standards often require certification bodies to be accredited by independent, third party accreditation bodies such as JAS-ANZ or ANAB, dynamic standards are fast-evolving and are managed by DSI.

DSI serves as an accreditation body, and accredits its Dynamic Standard Certifiers such as CyberCert through its governance structures and policies. This model ensures reduction of wastage of time and resources, and introduces a more efficient process to match the annual updates of a dynamic standard, without the slow bureaucratic, multi-year procedures often associated with government-backed schemes or accreditation bodies.

One of the common questions around SMB1001 certification is whether certifiers must be accredited by JAS-ANZ, ANAB, or equivalent national accreditation bodies. The answer is no— just like IEEE, IETF, PCI, DSI, as an industry standard certifier spanning across multiple jurisdictions around the world, should not be confined or accredited by one specific government or independent accreditation body. This is illogical, and adds unnecessary red tape to the process.

Instead, certification bodies are accredited by DSI’s governance bodies, ensuring that they meet the standards required for evaluating compliance with SMB1001. There is constant intense scrutiny over the DSI accreditation process.

Dynamic standard certifiers are not just overseen by the Steering Committee, but also the Standards and Certification Oversight Board, composed of industry and government experts across multiple countries, ensuring that the certification process is rigorous, transparent and relevant.