Welcome Letter
Welcome letter from the Conference Program Committee Co-Chair
Dear Participants,
As the Program Co-chair, it is my pleasure to invite you to attend the 17th Annual FIRST Conference in Singapore.
This year's conference will draw attendance from leading incident and vulnerability handling professionals from all over the world. Speakers representing industry, government policy makers, as well as academic scholars and researchers from the information security arena will present and discuss the latest topics in contemporary and prospective computer and network security issues, focusing on strategies, experiences and techniques with regards to the incident process including pro-active measures.
The 2005 conference program is a brand new program design consisting of a Technical and a Business Track delivered in parallel. This Conference delivers the most up-to-date and advanced "pure" technical information for IT security professionals for three days, and also provides opportunity for CIOs, CEOs, industry leaders, managers, academics, and government officials to exchange ideas on technology trends and best practices.
We have a great line-up of key note speakers including:
- His Excellency Dr. Lee Boon Yang - Minister, Ministry of Information,
Communications and the Arts of Singapore - Bill Cheswick, Chief Scientist at Lumeta Corporation
- Howard Schmidt, Former White House Cyber Security Advisor and Chief Security Strategist at USCERT
- Jeffrey B. Ritter, Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Nicholson Graham LLP
- Steve Lipner, Director of security engineering strategy, Microsoft
This week-long conference is an excellent opportunity for you to meet with FIRST members from all over the world, share the view of Incident Response Teams, and create an opportunity for networking, collaboration, sharing of technical information and the building of trust relationships internationally. As always, we extend a warm welcome to all our colleagues in the industry who share our interest in improving information protection.
A bridge between the East and the West for centuries, Singapore is located in the heart of fascinating Southeast Asia, where you'll find a harmonious blend of culture, cuisine, arts and architecture along with excellent shopping opportunities.
I am looking forward to meeting you in Singapore in June at what promises to be a most stimulating and enjoyable event!
Yurie Ito
2005 FIRST Conference Program Committee Co-chair
Welcome letter from the Conference Program Committee Co-Chair
Hello,
My name is Mark McPherson. I am the Training Manager for AusCERT located at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. AusCERT has been a member of FIRST since 1993, although we were called “SERT” way back then. We hosted the 11th FIRST conference here in Brisbane in 1999 (one year after I joined the AusCERT team), and this year it is my honour to be involved with the organization of the 17th Annual FIRST conference, as Co-chair.
The Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST) would therefore like to extend an invitation to you to join us at the conference in Singapore from June 26 to July 1, 2005.
Along with my fellow Co-chair Yurie Ito and the hard-working volunteers on the conference programme committee, we are lining-up a pretty interesting selection of speakers for you this year.
The FIRST Steering Committee, the FIRST Educational working group, the FIRST Secretariat and our stalwart conference organiser Phoebe Boelter have all been working hard to make this conference an enjoyable and informative experience.
With your participation we can make this a meeting of the best that the global IRT and IT security community has to offer.
We look forward to seeing you all there.
Sincerely Yours,
Mark McPherson
FIRST Conference Program Committee, Co-chair