The Forum of Incident Response and Security Team (FIRST), the globally recognised leader in incident response, has recently announced the appointment of Tracy Bills as their new chair and the appointment of Carlos Alvarez, Director of Trust and Public Safety Engagement at ICANN, to the Board of Directors.
With over 25 years of experience in cybersecurity and intelligence analysis, Bills has proven her expertise in assisting public and private computer security incident response teams (CSIRTs) and security operations centres (SOCs) to develop, implement and refine effective processes. She is currently a Senior Cybersecurity Operations Researcher at the CERT/CC Division of Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute, with a particular focus on building capabilities and capacity for national-level CSIRTs.
As the new chair of the Board of Directors, Bills expressed her gratitude for the opportunity and her commitment to working with members to combat increasing pressure from threats and attacks on a global scale. With over 679 member teams across 105 countries, Bills praised the passion for continuous learning and skill development from teams defending systems worldwide. She noted the importance of unity in combating the ongoing malicious activity and championed diversity across the cybersecurity sector.
Joining the Board of Directors is Carlos Alvarez, who leads ICANN’s global engagement with the trust and public safety communities, including law enforcement agencies, national cyber security centres, cyber threat intelligence, and operational security teams. Alvarez has extensive experience in his field, having previously co-chaired the Messaging, Malware and Mobile Anti-Abuse Working Group’s Anti-Phishing Special Interest Group, and co-founded the DNS Abuse Special Interest Group at FIRST.
Commenting on the appointments, Chris Gibson, FIRST CEO, highlighted the importance of collaboration and working together among the cybersecurity and incident response sector in making the internet a safer place for all. Gibson praised the expertise and global reach brought to the Board of Directors by each member and expressed his forward-looking approach to working with them.
Bills and Alvarez will join existing Board members Serge Droz (Liaison), Michael Hausding (SWITCH CERT), Mona Elisabeth Østvang (mnemonic IRT), Yukako Uchida (JPCERT/CC), Désirée Sacher-Boldewin (Liaison), Olivier Caleff (Liaison), Trey Darley (Accenture), and Audrey Mnisi (Ghana Association of Banks – CERT/GH).
The FIRST team expressed gratitude to Sherif Hashem, the previous chair of the Board, for his contributions and looks forward to working with him again on future projects.
The appointment of Bills and Alvarez reflects the FIRST team’s commitment to championing global cybersecurity collaboration, knowledge-sharing and strategic planning. FIRST’s executive team is confident that Bills and Alvarez will help the organisation to continue its excellent tradition of keeping the internet safe for all.