Together with the registries in Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Austria, DENIC was honoured at the CENTR Awards in the category "Innovation".

On 8 October, the award ceremony for the "CENTR Member Security Maturity Model (CM-SMM)" took place in Brussels. The initiative by DNS Belgium, DENIC, nic.at, SIDN and SWITCH works with defined benchmarks that provide information on the implementation status of the security measures. Using a so-called self-assessment scorecard, each registry receives an evaluation of its strengths and weaknesses and can thus initiate measures for further optimization. The model was successfully introduced in 2018.

Based on industry standards such as ISO/IEC 27001 and supplemented by industry-specific aspects from the domain industry, the maturity model supports internal security organisations in evaluating security processes.

"The model aims at gaining a better understanding of the capabilities of coping with potential security incidents in the field of information security. Above all, it helps to identify gaps and develop improvement plans as well as to continuously measure the progress of the maturity level of security measures. If necessary, the level of maturity can be compared with the industry average," says DENIC's CISO Boban Krsic, co-author of the framework.

"Security is a key issue in the domain industry, and with the Security Maturity Model, we have implemented a cooperative approach that not only establishes security standards at a high level, but also ensures continuous future-oriented optimization. The award underlines the importance of cooperation between the registries and the establishment of best practices in the industry," adds DENIC CEO Dr. Jörg Schweiger.

This was the fourth time the CENTR Awards took place to honour initiatives, projects, teams and individuals that have a positive, sustainable impact on the domain industry.