The South African National Research and Education Network (South African NREN) Computer Security Incident Response Team (CSIRT), a virtual team distributed between the SANReN Competency Area and TENET, has been welcomed as full members of the global Forum for Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST). This membership serves as confirmation that the South African NREN CSIRT meets the level of maturity required and verified by the global CSIRT community to deliver its services in a trustworthy and effective manner.
FIRST is a global leader in incident response and membership enables incident response teams to more effectively respond to security incidents. Additional benefits of membership include: access to best practices, advanced sources of information security news, incidents and vulnerabilities and related discussions. These will directly benefit the South African NREN beneficiaries via the services provided to them by the CSIRT.
“Participants in FIRST are part of a network of computer security incident response and security teams that work together voluntarily to deal with computer security problems and their prevention. FIRST aims to foster cooperation and coordination in incident prevention, to stimulate rapid reaction to incidents, and to promote information sharing among members and the community at large.” – first.org
The South African NREN CSIRT is the 4th South African team to join FIRST which currently has a membership of 520 teams across the globe. The team entry can be seen on the FIRST members webpage.
The roles and responsibilities of the de facto South African NREN are distributed between the South African National Research Network (SANReN) group at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the Tertiary Education and Research Network of South Africa (TENET). SANReN and TENET co-operate closely in building and supporting the South African NREN as a research, education and innovation platform for the benefit of its customers and users, and for the realisation of associated national development objectives.
Story credit: SANReN Competency Area
