2027 Call for Speakers
Submit Your Proposal by December 7, 2026
About the Conference Call for Speakers
The 39th annual FIRST conference will be held June 13-18, 2027, at the Queen Sirikit National Convention Center in Bangkok, Thailand.
FIRST brings together security and incident response professionals from multiple career stages and from public, private, and education sectors around the world. Participants exchange ideas, datasets, and new techniques, debate key issues, strengthen trust networks, and collaborate on areas of mutual interest.
We are seeking speakers to present their latest insights on incident response and security operations, advancing our collective ability to prevent and respond to computer security incidents.
What We Are Looking For...
We welcome ideas, developments, or experiences that advance security and incident response practices. Ideas that can be implemented by other teams—without requiring proprietary information or software—are especially encouraged. The Suggested Topics list is provided to help spark ideas about work you or your team members may wish to share.
Please note: presentations designed to promote commercial applications, solutions, or products will not be accepted. In other words—no sales or marketing pitches.
Language
The official language of the conference is English.
Suggested Topics
Aligned with the conference theme, "Guardians of the Global Network: Uniting for Resilience," we invite submissions under the following broad topics:
- Emerging Threats, Attacks, and Defenses: new technical, human, supply chain, or hybrid attack vectors and defenses, including emerging targets such as ML/LLM/NLP, mobile, cloud, IoT, and Industrial Control & Cyber-Physical Systems (ICS/CPS).
- Attack Surface Management - Shadow IT, Shadow AI, and Legacy Systems: unsanctioned tools, services, and cloud resources, unmanaged AI tools, models, and agents, and outdated or unsupported systems that create vulnerabilities and increase the risk of cyberattacks. Includes asset and AI-usage discovery and inventory, risk assessment, compensating controls, leakage of sensitive data through prompts and third-party AI services, over-privileged agents with access to internal systems, unvetted models and plugins, governance and acceptable-use policies, and migration or decommissioning of legacy technology.
- Threat Detection and Intrusion Analysis: innovative detection methods, threat intelligence analysis, tools, techniques, and case studies, including securing execution environments and application runtimes and mitigating RCE and architectural flaws in foundational web languages and interpreters (e.g., PHP).
- Incident Response Methodologies and Operations: frameworks, playbooks, automation, tabletop exercises, and practical detection-to-recovery workflows, including OT and cyber-physical incident response for cross-domain breaches where IT compromises extend into industrial control systems, smart grids, or IoT infrastructure.
- Security Team Management and Maturity: recruiting, training, executive communication, preventing staff burnout, and assessing how well teams follow best-practice processes to improve their maturity.
- Product Security and Supply Chains: secure development practices, building resilient systems, and preventing incidents caused by implicit trust in software and hardware vendors.
- Building Trust and Collaboration: information sharing and effective collaboration across organizational, sectoral, and national boundaries. Shaping the Rules of the Game: privacy, ethics, norms, governance, policies, standards, and best practices.
- Applied Machine Learning for Security: statistical models, LLMs, and AI techniques in incident response, CTI, and security research.
- Securing AI Systems: best practices for protecting pipelines, models, and AI infrastructure from attacks, misuse, and data breaches, so they behave safely, reliably, and ethically.
- Cyber Law and Cross-Border Legislation: legal and regulatory aspects of incident response, including breach notification obligations, jurisdictional conflicts, cross-border data access and evidence handling, law enforcement cooperation, and liability.
The Program Committee recognizes the rapid growth of AI-related topics, and we welcome submissions that explore the role of AI in enhancing Incident Response. However, our focus is on substantive research in this area which includes work on developing new models, training and fine-tuning models, or vigorously evaluating their performance. General AI research without a clear tie to Incident Response or practical security operations are not in scope for this CFS.
Submission Formats
The conference will feature three parallel session tracks, offering a variety of learning styles and content types. When submitting, please indicate whether your presentation is best described as technical, management, or academic. You should also specify the intended audience level: beginner, intermediate, or advanced.
Submissions may propose one of the following formats:
- Presentations: Conventional talk to a theatre audience of 300-1,000 participants.
- 30 minutes (including Q&A)
- 45 minutes (including Q&A)
- Panels: Must clearly outline audience takeaways, identify the moderator, and provide a tentative list of panelists.
- 45 minutes (including Q&A)
Please note: presenters are expected to deliver their sessions in person at the conference.
The Review Process, Tips, and Guidelines
All submissions are reviewed by an international program committee of experts and practitioners, representing a diverse set of teams and organizations. They are responsible for selecting the best and most relevant talks to make up the conference program.
FIRST does not require you to submit a formal paper. However, your submission must clearly demonstrate the following:
- What problem is this addressing?
- How does this help? Who will benefit?
- Why are you a good person to tell us this?
Important: Submissions must be complete by the deadline or they cannot be considered.
Deadline: December 07, 2026 (23:59 UTC)
Submission Tool: EasyChair
If you already have an EasyChair login, you can sign in directly. New users will need to create an account. The program committee will use EasyChair for any follow-up during the review process. Please allow yourself at least 20 minutes per submission and please read the above submission instructions and tips on what makes a successful and complete FIRST submission.
Backup Speakers
In addition to the main conference program, the Program Committee may identify a limited number of high-quality submissions as backup presentations. Backup speakers should be prepared to present onsite in Bangkok if a scheduled session becomes unavailable due to a cancellation or other program change.
Backup speakers will be notified of their status during the acceptance process and are expected to prepare their presentation to the same standard as speakers included in the initial program. If activated, FIRST will make every effort to provide as much advance notice as possible; however, substitutions may occasionally be required on short notice during the conference.
Backup speakers receive the same speaker privileges outlined below, regardless of whether their presentation is ultimately added to the program.
Speaker Privileges
FIRST offers presentation speakers discounted admission rates. FIRST does not contribute to travel, accommodation, or other expenses. Please keep in mind the following guidelines regarding complimentary admission:
- General Presentation: One complimentary full admission registration pass per accepted presentation; discounted registration rates are offered to co-presenters at US $1700. Complimentary day passes will also be offered for those planning to attend only the day of their presentation. *Co-presenters added AFTER the review and acceptance process will not be eligible for speaker discounts.
- Panels: One complimentary registration pass for each accepted panelist.
Backup speakers are offered the same speaker privileges.
Speaker discounts are non-transferable and valid for the accepted conference year.
Publishing, Copyright, and Digital Media
Speakers provide consent for FIRST to record their presentations in audio and/or visual form and grant FIRST a royalty-free license to use, reproduce, and distribute the recordings and accompanying materials. Speakers also understand that while they retain the rights to their presentation materials (handouts, slides, etc.) and the content of the presentation, FIRST is the sole copyright owner of any recording and can distribute the recording, along with any supporting materials in any way, with the appropriate attribution of the speakers. Submitters can indicate an opt-out for recording their presentation.
The annual FIRST conference is open to the public and welcomes non-members, press, and social media coverage. After the conference, presentation materials will be made available on the public area of the FIRST website. If your presentation will be sensitive in nature and will require special handling, you must indicate your TLP level during your CFS submission. Submitters may be asked to explain the reason for the chosen TLP level. TLP definitions can be found at www.first.org/tlp.
Professional photographs, audio, and video will be captured during the Conference. Conference Attendees wearing lanyards indicating their approval to be photographed/recorded, grant FIRST and its representative’s permission to photograph and/or record them during Conference activities and to use such recordings in support of FIRST’s mission. Uses of records may include but are not limited to, electronic broadcasting on FIRST’s YouTube Channel, educational initiatives, post-conference reporting, and FIRST’s social media activities.
Important Dates
Dates are subject to change.
- Call for Speakers Opens: October 30, 2026
- Call for Speakers Closes: December 7, 2026
- Acceptance Notifications: February 15 - March 5, 2027
- Final Confirmations of Acceptance Due: March 12, 2027
- Optional Draft Presentation or Talking Points Due for Review: April 30, 2027
- Optional Presentations for Final Review/Feedback: May 15, 2027
Questions for the Program Chair
If you have questions about the conference submission process or need additional information, please contact the Program Chair, Martijn van der Heide at firstcon27-chair@first.org.