FIRST Accelerates Global Security Initiatives with Upcoming Conference, Leadership Expansion, and Technical Advancement Programs

CAMBRIDGE, UNITED KINGDOM – September 16, 2025 - The Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST) today announced multiple strategic initiatives demonstrating significant momentum in advancing global cybersecurity capabilities, including the launch of its 2025 Vulnerability Forecasting Technical Colloquium, expansion of technical specialization programs, and strengthening international partnerships.

Vulnerability Forecasting Colloquium Tackles Prediction Challenges Head-On

FIRST will host the 2025 Vulnerability Forecasting Technical Colloquium (Vuln4Cast TC) on September 25–26, 2025, at Darwin College, Cambridge. This event will unite vulnerability researchers, data scientists, and security practitioners to advance predictive cybersecurity methodologies and address the urgent need for better patch prioritization and risk management.

Notable speakers include cybersecurity advocate and community convenor Jen Ellis, alongside leaders and practitioners presenting best practices and exploring emerging trends such as:

• Measurement of vulnerabilities driving vulnerability management
• Forecasting exploits and predicting associated incidents
• Decision science in security and vulnerability management
• Data sources, formats, and features related to exploits and exploitation

"Incident response and vulnerability management is stressful because it requires balancing both uncertainty and expectations while building trust," said Éireann Leverett, FIRST Liaison and Lead Member of FIRST's Vulnerability Forecasting SIG, as well as, the Founder and CTO of Killara Cyber. “By working together to make the vulnerability ecosystem more predictable, we can reduce that uncertainty and ultimately strengthen global cybersecurity.”

Thanks to the support of corporate sponsors, students will have free access to tickets.

FIRST Launches Global Detection Engineering & Threat Hunting Special Interest Group

FIRST has established the Detection Engineering & Threat Hunting Special Interest Group (SIG), chaired by leaders from Europe, APAC, and North America.

Following the successful model of other FIRST SIGs—including the PSIRT SIG's vulnerability disclosure practices, the EPSS SIG's exploit prediction scoring system, and the Malware Analysis SIG's standardized analysis methodologies—this new SIG will create shared frameworks and repositories to end duplication of effort across the global cybersecurity community.

"Our goal is to move the industry forward by giving teams common frameworks they can adapt, rather than reinventing the wheel in isolation," said Chris Gibson, CEO of FIRST. "This collaboration will accelerate learning and raise the baseline for detection engineering globally."

Women of FIRST Expand Cybersecurity Diplomacy

The Women of FIRST (WoF) SIG advanced the organization’s role in cyber diplomacy through a recent collaboration alongside the United Nations Cyber OEWG. WoF Chair Khushali Dalal led a cyber incident simulation in New York as part of the Women in International Security and Cyberspace Fellowship.

“Together with my colleague Klée Aiken, we presented a dynamic, hands-on simulation: “Cyber Incident Simulation Through a Public Policy Lens: Can You Piece Together the Attack?” This wasn’t just another tabletop. It was an opportunity to step into the shoes of both incident responders and policymakers — blending technical clues with geopolitical realities,” said Khushali Dalal.

This initiative highlights FIRST’s growing role as a leader at the nexus of technical operations, policy, and international cyber diplomacy.

Part of an ongoing collaboration with the WiC Fellowship, this edition was enabled by the FIRST CORE program, launched in June 2025 alongside founding CORE partner, Fortinet.

Regional Leadership Strengthens Representation

FIRST membership elected Graciela Martinez Giordano to its Board of Directors, recognizing her leadership in advancing cybersecurity capacity across Latin America and the Caribbean.

Martinez Giordano has trained more than 1,000 cybersecurity professionals, co-organized nine FIRST Symposiums for the region, and spearheaded the creation of LACNIC CSIRT using FIRST’s framework. She has been instrumental in growing the LAC-CSIRTs community since 2014.

"I hope my journey can inspire other women and young professionals, showing them that it is possible to build a successful and fulfilling career in cybersecurity," Martinez Giordano stated.

Also available in PDF

---

Issued on behalf of FIRST. For further information, please contact FIRST Press.

About FIRST

FIRST aspires to bring together incident response and security teams from every country across the world to ensure a safe internet for all. Founded in 1990, the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST) consists of internet emergency response teams from more than 800 corporations, government bodies, universities and other institutions across 110 countries in the Americas, Asia, Europe, Africa, and Oceania. For more information and to see the full calendar of events, visit: FIRST.Org.

Connect with FIRST on social media via BlueSky, GitHub, LinkedIn, Mastodon, Meta, X and YouTube.