We all know that FIRST stands for Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams. Even though most FIRST members are focusing on Incident Response the cohort of Security Teams is increasing too. During the last quarter of 2025, we reached the 1,024 milestone of active members. It took 35 years, but let's guess that reaching 2,048 active members will come faster.
Most member teams bear 'CSIRT', 'CERT' or 'PSIRT' in their names, and have been built, got inspiration from or evolved using the well known CSIRT Framework or the PSIRT Framework. Many use SIM3 maturity model as a way to assess then improve their organisation, procedures, and better handle human and tooling aspects.
Let's cast some light on our first FIRST member spotlight: Dr Kaleem Ahmed Usmani from CERT-MU in Mauritius. The aim of this award is to recognize outstanding contributions and exceptional leadership in advancing cybersecurity collaboration and community engagement within the FIRST network.
Dr Kaleem Ahmed Usmani played a key role in organizing the 2025 FIRST & AfricaCERT Symposium: Africa and Arab Regions in December 2025. His dedication and hard work made the event a success. Not a surprise from a FIRST member who has paid enormous efforts for the success of the community since an initial AfricaCERT event hosted in Mauritius in 2014.
“Hosting the FIRST and AfricaCERT Technical Symposium in Mauritius in December 2025 demonstrated the power of collaboration in building cyber resilience, uniting experts across regions to address today's challenges and prepare for tomorrow's digital threats” said Dr Kaleem Ahmed Usmani.
Big milestone at the ITU-T SG17 closing plenary (Thursday 2025-12-11) in Geneva! The membership officially approved C396 XS.TP.epoch "Technical Report on Global Coordination Requirements for 2038-class rollover events (including but not limited to 2036, 2038, and 2106)".
The new Time Security SIG was approved and started operating. It exists to help the global FIRST community prepare for the 2036–2038 epoch rollovers. By coordinating research, testing, and outreach on time integrity, the SIG connects CSIRTs, vendors, and standards bodies to strengthen resilience across critical infrastructure. It´s goal is to ensure the world’s clocks keep running — securely — long past 2038. If you are interested in more information or want to join, head over to https://www.first.org/global/sigs/time/.
FIRST continues to provide training on different cybersecurity topics and in different parts of the world through our Community Trainers and CCB program. From October to December, FIRST has delivered nine trainings across seven economies with support from our training community, thanks to everyone for sharing their expertise and experience!
Growth Stack Media secured and tracked 29 pieces of earned media coverage for FIRST in Q4FY25 across notable publications including Dark Reading, SecurityBrief, and IT Brief. You can view the full CoverageBook of articles here.
I know — it’s a tired topic. So much has been written about information sharing that it can feel like white noise. Yet, it remains a critical issue that we haven't quite solved.
During a recent trip to China, I heard a recurring concern: “People no longer share vulnerabilities with us.” When I mention this back home, the common retort is, “Well, of course — their state actors will just use that data to attack us.”
FIRST has welcomed 64 new members over the second semester of 2025: 39 Teams, 23 Liaisons, and 2 Associates.
Most growth comes from new Teams and Liaisons from the US (+9), Dominican Republic (+7), Taiwan, Province of China (+5), Switzerland (+3), Germany (+3), Great Britain (+3), Republic of Korea (+3), and Mexico (+3).
Overall at the end of 2025, FIRST community covers 116 countries, and is composed of 824 Teams (+87), 4 Associates (+4), and 202 Liaisons (+44).
February 9-10, 2026
Paris (FR)
February 10-11, 2026
Bangalore (IN)
#BANGALORETC26
February 26-27, 2026
Tashkent (UZ)
Co-hosted by UZCERT
March 18-20, 2026
Shkodër, Albania (AL)
#BCD2026
Early Registration Available!
April 13-16, 2026
Scottsdale (USA)
#VULNCON26
SAVE THE DATE
April 21-23, 2026
Munich (DE)
#FIRSTCTI26
May 06-08, 2026
Victoria Falls (ZW)
Early Registration Available!
June 14-19, 2026
Denver (US)
#FIRSTCON26