The Computing Incident Response Team for the Financial Sector (EG-FinCIRT) of the Central Bank of Egypt has successfully obtained the accreditation and membership of the Global Forum Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST), after fulfilling all technical and organizational requirements within a short period of time, to become the 1^st internationally recognized sectoral CIRT in Egypt.

This recognition is part of CBE’s strategy to build an integrated framework to reinforce cybersecurity in the financial and banking sectors, and praising EG-FinCIRT endeavors during the past four years, and its keenness to adopt and comply with international cybersecurity standards and policies, as well as ensure their implementation, which facilitated the swift completion of all audits and assessments carried out by the specialists of (FIRST) over the past four months.

The accreditation and membership of the (FIRST) Forum aim to enhance and expand the collaboration and coordination through exchanging the expertise among member teams towards combating cybers crimes, facilitating rapid responses, supporting the development of common means of data exchange among members, and facilitating effective handling and responding to cyberthreats. The global forum also contributes to the capacity building of technical competencies of the members’ response centers and teams, by educating them with the international best practices in this field, as well as availing instantaneous exchange of security and incident information, to empower members’ response teams to mitigate and handle cyber-attacks and security threats, while stimulating rapid response and proactive measures and procedures.

FIRST forum also supports cooperation and strategic partnerships between countries and global institutions, links incident response teams from all member countries together and facilitates the exchange of technical expertise and cybersecurity intelligence. It also allows members to attend specialized seminars that bring together cybersecurity experts, training courses, and workshops, as well as gather incident response teams to participate in the Annual Conference on Computer Security Incident Handling, in addition to providing the latest publications and best practices guides on cybersecurity and internet governance, in addition to availing access to seminars and panel discussions between member teams.

EG-FinCIRT membership in FIRST Forum comes in line with CBE’s strategy, which aims to enhance the participation of the Computer Incident Response Center for the financial sector in implementing the national cybersecurity strategy efficiently and effectively; while improving the ability of state institutions and authorities to respond in a timely manner, cooperate and coordinate in preventing cyber-attacks.

CBE’s membership in the forum also contributes to supporting and raising Egypt’s Global Cybersecurity index), which also contributes to boost the confidence of the country’s digital economy, supports in the attraction of foreign investments, and enhances the security and safety of critical banking infrastructure through immediate global exchange of the latest incident response frameworks and international best practices.

The Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST) is a global leader in cyber incident response, bringing together a diverse group of cyber incident response teams from government entities, businesses, and educational institutions, with currently over 600 members from around the globe.