February 12, 2008
The Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST) is the premier organization and recognized global leader in incident response. Q-CERT is a full member of FIRST, which enables incident response teams to respond, both reactively and proactively, to security incidents spanning the globe. Membership in this unique information technology community provides exceptional benefits for Qatar.
Two members of the Q-CERT staff attended the latest FIRST Technical Colloquium held January 28-31 in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic. FIRST TCs provide opportunities for member teams to share information about vulnerabilities, incidents, tools, and all other issues that affect the operation of incident response and security teams. This is accomplished by having subject matter experts give presentations on specific topics, as well as having open discussions among other international CERT teams on multiple security issues. Of particular interest were the web vulnerability sessions that focused on identifying, assessing, exploiting, and defending against web exploits and vulnerabilities within browsers and web pages. The training materials that the staff members brought back to Q-CERT enable the entire staff to learn and benefit from the training.