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RNP’s security analysts participate in international contest

Spanish and Mexican groups invite people to the jury of the Second Forensic Analysis Competition

Two technicians working for RNP’s Security Incident Response Team (CAIS) were invited to participate as jurors in the Second Forensic Analysis Competition, promoted by the National Autonomous University of Mexico (Unam) together with Rediris, the Spanish academic network. The aim of the competition is to foster the development of the forensic field in computing in Latin America and Spain.

Forensic analysis is an area of security in computing that deals with the application of procedures and techniques with the aim of determining the facts that happened in a computing system that has been attacked. The security professional must investigate an affected system in order to determine what happened, when, where, how and who was responsible for it. This task has become more and more important in companies. The detection of problems and the ones who caused them not only permits solving the first and punishing the later but it also contributes to reinforce barriers, avoiding new attacks.

More than a thousand people or groups are competing to get the three prizes offered: a license of the software Encase Forensic Edition (1st place); a registration, with all the expenses paid, in the congress Seguridad en Cómputo 2005 (2nd place); and a registration in a Sans Institute course (3rd place). The winners will be known on April 20th.

It is not the first time that a technician from CAIS participates in this competition. In 2003, Jacomo Piccolini was invited to the jury of the First Forensic Analysis Competition, organized by Rediris. Now Jacomo is sharing the task with another CAIS professional: Guilherme Venere. Specialists from Spain, the United States and Mexico are also part of the jury.

CAIS’s insertion in the world scene has been growing steadily. In 2001, RNP’s security group joined the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (First), an international consortium of security groups, having gotten a chair in its Board of Directors in 2002. Since then, CAIS has been sponsoring the membership of Latin American security groups in this team. Among other activities, the technicians of RNP’s security group have already offered courses to professionals from several countries and collaborated in the production and translation of important documents to the sector, such as the Sans Top 20. In 2003, Jacomo Piccolini and Guilherme Venere won Sans Institute’s competition. Jacomo has also been the coordinator of First’s Hands-On Course since October 2004.

More information about the Second Forensic Analysis Competition can be found at the address http://www.seguridad.unam.mx/eventos/reto/.

[RNP, 03.15.2005]