In incident handling proper communication channels are paramount, the function of these should frequently be assessed.
In communication the standard tool is still e-mail, sometimes in combination with a ticket system and/or with extensions, like cryptographic signing, or encrypted communications.
While the e-mail and ticket systems used do not change often, the contact addresses are rather dynamic and need regular verification.
Any support team responsible for the coordination of activities, like incident coordination need to know about he status of the used communication channels.
A way to assess the foundation of the communication channels is to run so called communication challenges, see for example https://wise-community.org/sccc/, or the reaction tests exercised in GEANT TF-CSIRT.
The used toolset is developed by EGI CSIRT and adapted to the more generic situation we have in eduGAIN. It consists of
The security contacts email addresses will be retrieved from the eduGAIN Database using the APIs published on the technical site.
The addresses will be provided in a CSV file with the following format: <Identity Federation Name>,<Email>.
The script that parses the API is available on the GEANT gitlab:
Dear {NAME},
you have received this message to verify the security contact data set in the eduGAIN Database for your Identity Federation. Please confirm that this contact is still correct by clicking the following URL and following the instructions: https://challenge.edugain.org/{UNIQUE_URL} No further action is required except for the above. Sincerely yours, eduGAIN Security Team
The content in "{ }" will be automatically filled by the communication challenge tool-set based on the participants csv file.
Make sure to replace "< >" with meaningful input.