FIRST to learn know-how from Japan’s recoveries

VANCOUVER, CANADA, JUNE 27. The lessons Japan can teach the world about disaster recovery will be a top theme for delegates from FIRST, the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams, when they meet for their 21st annual conference in Kyoto next year.
Launching preparations today as the 20th conference closed in Vancouver, Yurie Ito [YURIE ITO], Director of JPCERT/CC, Japan, who will be coordinator in Kyoto said: “Our history is studded with natural and man-made calamities, and both disaster recovery and business contingency planning of necessity take a high place on the national agenda.”
On January 17, 1995, Japan suffered the costliest natural disaster ever to strike one country – the Great Hanshin (Kobe) earthquake.
More than 6,000 people died, the devastation cost the country US$200-billion and critical infrastructure was wrecked.
Damage knocked out 70 per cent of the Osaka to Kobe railway, but in a remarkable turnaround 80 per cent of services were operating normally within a month.
In a keynote speech Mr Takayuki Sasaki [TAKAYUKI SASAKI], vice president of JR-West, the Japanese railway service, will describe how that recovery was achieved, and in his capacity as JR-West general manager of IT development he will also discuss the earthquake’s impact on IT systems and how they were restored.
“Kyoto is also home to a large number of hardware, software and games vendors,” said Ms Ito, “so we will be welcoming their contributions as we explore better ways to secure software and respond to vulnerabilities.”
And at Kyoto FIRST will continue its work in furthering collaboration between incident response teams and law enforcement agencies, taking in a keynote from Dr Suguru Yamaguchi [SUGURU YAMAGUCHI], board director of JPCERT/CC Japan and member of the Cabinet Office National Information Security Centre.
Under the banner “Aftermath: Crafts and Lessons of Incident Recovery,” FIRST’s 21st annual conference will take place from June 28 to July 3 at the Hotel Granvia, Kyoto Station.
More than 400 delegates were in Vancouver this week at conference 20 from 48 countries, making this among the world’s biggest security conferences.
Founded in 1990, FIRST is a non-profit body which consists of Internet emergency response teams from 194 corporations, government bodies, universities and other institutions from across the Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceania. It leads the world fight-back against cyber-crime, sabotage and terrorism, and promotes co-operation between CERT’s and law enforcement agencies.
More information about proceedings at the Vancouver conference at: www.first.org/conference/2008
And about FIRST:
http://www.first.org/
http://www.first.org/about/


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