Dear Participants,
The 2005 June conference is just barely finished, and we are forging ahead with the announcement for the 2006 conference. As Program Chair, it is my pleasure to announce the 18th Annual FIRST Conference in Baltimore, and to invite you to participate in that event.
For many years—in fact, the entire history of FIRST—I have been an observer, participant, presenter, or reviewer in FIRST events. In July of 1989 Rich Pethia, the original Manager of the CERT/CC (and current Director of our CERT Programs) at the Software Engineering Institute in Pittsburgh, co-hosted with the National Institutes of Standards and Technology the very first Invitational Workshop on Computer Security Incident Response—the precursor to the FIRST conferences—I helped out at that workshop, providing our business office and logistical support. Through the years I have seen the early development, growth, and maturation of FIRST as an organization and the addition of many new response teams around the world.
As Team Leader for the CERT® CSIRT Development Team, I have the privilege of working alongside my colleagues on CSIRT training and development activities, helping our sponsors and different organizations to develop strategies and guidance for incident management, conducting research into various areas of CSIRT development, and collaborating with experts, researchers, and colleagues (including a number in the FIRST community) to develop information and documents on incident handling processes. Much of what we have produced over the years is a direct result of our experiences in incident response activities and through collaborations and interactions with many individuals from a wide variety of commercial industries, educational institutions, federal/state agencies, military organizations, national teams, law enforcement officers, and other security experts around the globe. The continuation of such information sharing and experiences makes the 2006 Conference especially meaningful as the focus of this conference is Sharing Intelligence in Global Response. We want this conference to provide members of FIRST and our other interested attendees with opportunities to exchange ideas and further our mutual understanding concerning the vulnerabilities, threats, and attacks facing us today, as well as identifying and sharing best practice approaches to solutions and strategies to address these issues.
For the 2006 conference, we will draw attendance from experts around the world—representing industry, national CSIRT teams, government policy makers, legal representatives, academia, and researchers in information security. Speakers will present on topics related to challenges in information sharing, computer and network security issues, computer forensics, incident detection and prevention, new tools and techniques in computer security incident response, management and business strategies, case studies, and other security-related topics. The Conference program will continue with parallel track sessions targeting audiences interested in Technical or Business/Management areas, and we hope you will consider participating.
FIRST Conferences provide CSIRT managers, incident response staff, IT security managers, system and network administrators, law enforcement, and other technical professionals and security experts with current topical information about computer security threats and vulnerabilities; advanced techniques in security incident prevention, detection and response; and updated information on tools used in computer security incident response. The Conference also provides a forum for this diverse community of practitioners to gather together for a few days, network, share experiences, collaborate, and—perhaps most importantly—to build trusted relationships with peers and new colleagues.
On behalf of the FIRST Steering Committee, the Program Committee, the FIRST Secretariat, and our queen of conference organizers, Ms. Phoebe Boelter, I look forward to and solicit your support in helping to make the 2006 conference a success. Please consider attending or presenting at the conference, or suggest topics and speakers that you would like to hear. With your support and commitment we can make this conference the best ever!
If you have any questions, you can contact me directly at first-2006chair@first.org. For more information about the Call for Papers please see https://www.first.org/conference/2006/papers.html. I am looking forward to seeing many of you again in Baltimore and to meeting many new friends as well.
Georgia Killcrece
2006 FIRST Conference
Program Committee Chair
