Deactivation of Siemens ProductCERT Twitter Feed

Starting today, Siemens ProductCERT will no longer maintain the Twitter feed and delete the account in the following weeks.

Since 2011, Siemens ProductCERT used Twitter to distribute the Siemens Security Advisories to the Internet community. Back then, each advisory was perceived as an exception from the daily routine. The publication was often unexpected and handled as an alert, causing rushed reactions for many operators. Twitter used to be a suitable tool to convey these alerts quickly to interested parties.

Plenty of things changed since then, especially the sheer amount of information generated. In 2022, Siemens ProductCERT published around 300 new advisories and advisory updates, covering 600 vulnerabilities in 2000 products. We no longer consider this as an "alert" modus, but a routine.

This constant stream of vulnerability information requires other processes. Security updates should be "business as usual" today, with planned schedules and resources. The data must be provided reliably, equally and in consistent, predictable formats.

We have come to the conclusion that social media platforms such as Twitter are not serving our current needs. We therefore decided to limit the advisory distribution channels to:

• Website
• CSAF: We recommend automated monitoring and parsing of the CSAF feed and semi-automated matching against your asset inventory. This helps you in your risk assessment and patch planning processes.
• Mailing list: For smaller installations, the mailing list is another way to stay informed. The e-mails you receive contain an overview and links to all new and updated advisories in HTML format which is the most convenient format for non-automated parsing.