JPCERT/CC Eyes

Hello, I am Takumi from Global Coordination Division. I believe many of you have been working from home for long due to COVID-19 pandemic, and so have we. Many conferences, forums, seminars, and trainings went online in the past year and a half. Today, I would like to report on our international online CSIRT training delivered to VNCERT/CC in Vietnam recently.

This 4-day-long online CSIRT training program was conducted from June 15 to 18 as a part of the project by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). JICA is a governmental agency that assists developing countries’ social and economic growth and promote international cooperation and peace building. The participants of the training include staffs of VNCERT/CC and its parent organization AIS (Authority of Information Security), personnel of ministries and local governments, central bank, postal service, Vietnam Airlines, and other organizations.

The training covered various topics from basic incident coordination to the details of the latest security incident trends. I was one of the trainers and lectured “CSIRT fundamentals,” where the participants learned the roles and responsibilities of CSIRT as well as required skills to CSIRT staffs. In another lecture on incident coordination, I discussed several types of major cyber attacks, basic process of incident response and management, and important communication with outside entities such as vendors and law enforcement. A lecture on regional and global coordination was also provided particularly for VNCERT/CC, the national CSIRT of Vietnam. For technical staffs, we introduced TSUBAME, JPCERT/CC’s internet threat monitoring system, and Mejiro, JPCERT/CC’s Internet risk visualization service publicly available.

The training was very successful although it was originally planned to be held on-site in Hanoi until many countries placed travel restrictions due to COVID-19. The online setting turned out to be a great opportunity for staffs and officials who usually work different parts of Vietnam to participate in the training. They had active discussions not only with JPCERT/CC staffs but also among themselves, sharing information, ideas, and difficulties they face every day. We believe that creating an opportunity and environment for such multilateral communication is as important as the trainings provided. We are now confident that we can all learn and improve ourselves together even under difficult circumstances like this global pandemic we are experiencing.

Thanks for reading.

- Takumi Nakano