In early June 2023, nine PaCSON representatives travelled to Montreal, Canada to attend the National CSIRT Annual Conference (NatCSIRTCON23) and the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams Annual Conference (FIRSTCON23). These conferences took place over seven days and provided PaCSON Members with the opportunity to meet and engage with cyber counterparts from around the world and to participate in presentations and workshops.
This was the first occasion there has been significant PaCSON or Pacific representation at these conferences. The representatives who attended were from Cook Islands, Kiribati, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, and Vanuatu. Such a large Pacific delegation drew much attention to PaCSON and its Members in attendance. It provided an opportunity to shed light on cyber security in the region and the role PaCSON and its Members play in uplifting the Pacific.
NatCSIRTCON provides a forum for National CSIRTs to share information, tools, techniques, and strategies that address problems unique to CSIRTs that are responsible for a nation or an economy.
FIRSTCON promotes worldwide coordination and cooperation among computer security and incident response teams. The conference provides a forum for sharing goals, ideas and information on how to improve cyber security on a global scale. These two conferences ran in conjunction with each other, however they were different in nature. The NatCSIRT Conference was smaller and limited to those who held the national CSIRT function for their jurisdiction, whereas FIRSTCON consisted of approximately 800 attendees and had many different presentations running simultaneously.
PaCSON representatives attended sessions across the 7 days, actively participating in workshops when the opportunity arose. PaCSON Members found the conferences highly valuable. Ms. Pua Hunter from the Cook Islands stated that she felt ‘that a strong Pacific presence in terms of numbers at International events, in this instance at FIRST, is important and ought to be continued. In my view, it is key to fostering confidence among participants and encouraging increased engagement with each other, and with experts and colleagues from around the globe for personal and professional development.’
The whirlwind week came to a close on the Friday, with all Pacific travellers commencing their long journey home. The FIRST and NatCSIRT Conferences presented an engaging opportunity for PaCSON and the Pacific to be represented in the global cyber environment. The conferences resulted in further recognition of the Pacific cyber community, and enabled connections with other CERTs and CSIRTs. Next year, it is hoped that there will be an even larger representation of Pacific nations with more PaCSON members attending FIRSTCON24 in Fukuoka, Japan.