Major Challenges in Structuring and Institutionalizing CERT-Communication

This paper describes an approach to the definition of requirements for CERT-Communication in a changing environment. CERTs play an outstanding role for the detection, analysis and mitigation of vulnerabilities, threats and cyber-attacks in a multistakeholder cyberspace on which society relies more and more. Furthermore CERTs are a very valuable backbone for national and regional (e.g. European Union) cyber strategies and their role is partly defined in national and European legislation. It can be difficult to bring these obligations in line with the current primarily informal communication channels of CERTs that rely on person to person trust. This paper is devoted to the question of which kind of communication requirements have to be fulfilled to best use and support the work of CERTs in this complex environment.