What's New 2008

Please join us in welcoming the newest FIRST members: Effective September 1st is full team member IPA-CERT, Japan and effective October 1st are full team member Barclays Information Security and Privacy Incident Response and Investigations Team (ISPIRIT), UK and Liaison Member Kees Leune, USA. FIRST thanks the sponsors for their efforts and look forward to the active participation of the new members!

The Cisco CSIRT team provided the network connectivity for the 20th annual FIRST conference in Vancouver, BC Canada in June 2008. Through the deployment of their "mobile monitoring rack", the CSIRT built and managed a secure and fast conference network. Many security technologies were put in place to protect the attendees from malicious websites and malware throughout the span of the event resulting in hundreds of blocked connections to "bad" sites and banner ads as well as protection from Internet attacks towards the conference network.

In this short podcast, FIRST steering committee member and Director of Technical Operations for Japan Cert, Yurie Ito gives us the inside information on the 2009 FIRST Conference in Kyoto.

In this short podcast, FIRST steering committee member and Director of Technical Operations for Japan Cert, Yurie Ito gives us the inside information on the 2009 FIRST Conference in Kyoto. 

In this year’s 2008 FIRST conference, keynote speaker, Microsoft's George Stathakpolous showed us some statistics which indicated that Japan had the least amount of malware infections in the world by a huge order of magnitude. In addition Japan is a country that has had to cope with a large amount of natural disasters and yet they are still one of the most feared economies in the world. 

Whilst working at the FIRST 2008 Conference, I got to share an office with the 2008 and 2009 program chairs, who would share with me some pretty interesting and useful aspects of how members can influence the FIRST security conference program structure.  So I couldn't resist having a podcast with them. 

In this podcast 2008 and 2009 FIRST Program Chairs, Reneaue Raulton and Mick Creane share their thoughts on the conference programs and how you can incluence the direction of the program as well as win a prize for coming up with a great theme for a conference.

The Common Vulnerability Scoring System Special Interest Group (CVSS- SIG) had a very busy and successful working meeting during the 20th annual FIRST conference in Vancouver. We covered many of the CVSS use cases post v2 deployment - namely PCI and S-CAP - thanks for all the great participation.

As we've mentioned over and over again, FIRST is a truly international conference aimed at enabling delegates worldwide to network and swap stories and tips to better defend their environments and systems.   In this podcast, Uri, a delegate from Estonia, talks about why he enjoys being at FIRST over other conferences.

What is it like being a Chairman and a Vice Chair.  Long time steering committee member, Kennneth R Van Wyk has given his time to work in several of these positions. In this short podcast he tells us what they do and why they are important to the smooth running of the FIRST organisation.

Well-attended and well-received, FIRST Members might now access what was shown at Vancouver conference, under the theme "Crossing Borders: Towards the Globalization of Security". Our thanks to all presenters and program committee for their amazing job.

In this podcast, Peter Allor of IBM tells Ben Chai what it’s like being the FIRST 2008 Conference Liaison and the importance of this role for the FIRST membership.

In this podcast, Peter Allor of IBM tells Ben Chai what it’s like being the FIRST 2008 Conference Liaison and the importance of this role for the FIRST membership. 

Two new national CSIRTs - CERT.at from Austria and SLCERT from Sri Lanka - have joined FIRST as full members. FIRST thanks the sponsors for their efforts and look forward to the active participation of the new members!

CERT/CC and FIRST jointly held the first-ever international competition honoring best practices and advances in safeguarding the security of computer systems and networks. The 2008 contest focused on: prevention and mitigation, under the banner "Protect". The winner best practice papers are available for download.

The lessons Japan can teach the world about disaster recovery will be a top theme for delegates from FIRST, the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams, when they meet for their 21st annual conference in Kyoto next year.

26 June – Steve Adegbite from Microsoft (USA) was the newest member elected to the FIRST SC for the 2008-2010 term. Also re-elected were Peter Allor from IBM (USA), Scott McIntyre from KPN-CERT (NL), Chris Gibson from Citigroup (USA/UK) and Derrick Scholl from Sun Microsystems (USA). Derrick Scholl and Chris Gibson will continue their roles as President/Chair and CFO/Treasurer, respectively. A fond farewell and thank you to Liliana 'Nina' Solha – who decided not to run for re-election after serving 6 years on the FIRST SC and heading up the website efforts and various TCs and programs throughout Latin America.

New methods that organisations and individuals can adopt for free to protect themselves from malicious Internet attacks were unveiled today at the 20th annual conference of FIRST, the Forum of Internet Response and Security Teams.

The number of innocent individuals in China whose personal computers were hijacked by criminals rose by a staggering 2125 per cent between 2006 and 2007, delegates were told here today at the 20th annual conference of FIRST, the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams.

A new initiative to ease tensions between law enforcers and internet security experts was launched here today at the 20th annual conference of FIRST, the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams.

More than 400 of the world's top internet crime fighters are in Vancouver this week for the 20th annual conference of FIRST, the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams.

FIRST would like to thank Citigroup for returning their continued support. Citigroup has been a sponsor since 2000.

Pepijn Vissers (Netherlands) has recently affiliated to FIRST as a liaison member. FIRST thanks the sponsor GOVCERT.NL for its support and looks forward to the active participation of the new member!

CSIRT Banco Real - Real Bank Brazil Security Incident Response Team - has recently affiliated to FIRST as a full member. FIRST thanks the sponsors CERT.br and AAB GCIRT for their efforts, and looks forward to the active participation of the new member!

A sponsor and loyal supporter since 1999, British Telecom returns as a member of the FIRST Sponsorship Team this year. Helping FIRST to celebrate 20 years of conferences, BT is back as the Diamond Sponsor in Vancouver. BT supports Tom Mullen as a member of the FIRST Steering Committee and Mick Creane as the 2009 Conference Program Chair. FIRST gratefully acknowledges BT for its support over the years.

In addition to signing on at the Platinum level, Microsoft has agreed to sponsor the first ever Geek Lounge at the 20th Annual Conference! Security gurus alike can meet and greet each other while enjoying some friendly competition on the XBOX 360 game console.

EMCs Product Security Response Center (EMC) from USA and Kakaku.com Security Incident Response Team (KKCSIRT) from Japan have joined FIRST as full members. FIRST thanks the sponsors for their efforts and look forward to the active participation of the new members!

Eric Pancer (USA) has recently affiliated to FIRST as a liaison member. FIRST thanks the sponsor NU-CERT for its support and looks forward to the active participation of the new member!

Now the latest program agenda of Joint Workshop on Security, and FIRST Technical Colloquium 2008 in Tokyo has been updated and published. We are looking forward to meeting as many of you as possible in one of the best season of the year in Tokyo, Japan!

The CERT(R) Coordination Center, the world's first computer security incident response team, is celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2008. While the CERT/CC continues to respond to major security incidents and analyze software vulnerabilities and malicious code, it has evolved in response to the changing internet environment. The CERT/CC is now part of the larger CERT Program, which takes a comprehensive approach to resisting and limiting the impact of network attacks. FIRST gratefully acknowledges the support of CERT/CC and all of its sponsors.

A total of 123 registrants from 28 different countries came together for the 23rd TF-CSIRT meeting on today. 66 different FIRST teams and TERENA members were able to participate in this event hosted by Sun Microsystems. The FIRST/TF-CSIRT Seminar will continue on Tuesday.

Google, a sponsor since Ottawa 2003 has returned to the sponsorship team! FIRST greatly appreciates Google's continuing support!

Hosted by CFC, HIRT, IIJ-SECT, JPCERT/CC, JSOC, NCSIRT, NISC, NTT-CERT, SBB-SIRT and YIRD from 25-28 March 2008 Akihabara UDX Gallery, Tokyo, Japan. More information about the program and location are available at FIRST website. FIRST Members may register online to attend to the event.

Bell Canada Information Protection Centre Response (Bell IPCR) and Korea Financial Computer Emergency Response Team (KFCERT) have joined FIRST as full members. FIRST thanks the sponsors for their efforts and look forward to the active participation of the new members!