Sri Lanka CERT|CC trains Bhutan Computer Incident Response Team

Sri Lanka CERT|CC, the national centre for cyber security in Sri Lanka, recently undertook an assignment to train the staff of Bhutan’s national CERT.

Bhutan Computer Incident Response Team (BtCIRT) is a part of the Department of Information Technology and Telecom, Ministry of Information and Communication of Bhutan. The team commenced operations in April 2016. 

On the request of Bhutan’s Ministry of Information and Communication, Sri Lanka CERT|CC invited Bhutan CERT staff for a four day training program on CERT operations. Five Bhutan CERT staff were trained under this program. The training commenced on 26 December 2016 at Sri Lanka CERT’s offices, and all the training was conducted by Sri Lanka CERT|CC staff. The training consisted of in-house experience sharing sessions as well as high-level technical sessions relating to Incident handling, Vulnerability Assessment, Penetration Testing and Digital Forensics Investigations, as well as Information Security Policy Formulation and Implementation,

Sri Lanka CERT|CC is a Member of the Asia Pacific Computer Emergency Response Team (APCERT) and the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST).

As an active and long-time Operational Member of APCERT, Sri Lanka CERT|CC is expected to perform certain tasks within the community, such as participating in regional incident response drills, signing up for APCERT initiated security projects, sharing threat intelligence, and building and maintaining contact with other APCERT members.

Additionally, Sri Lanka CERT|CC supports newly established CERT teams in the region to develop their capabilities and obtain membership of APCERT and FIRST. Earlier this year (2016) Sri Lanka CERT helped Tonga CERT officials with in-house experience sharing sessions, that eventually led to the establishment of Tonga’s national CERT. A similar assignment was undertaken in November 2016, when Sri Lanka CERT|CC sponsored Bangladesh’s application for Asia Pacific CERT membership, by carrying out a comprehensive audit of Bangladesh national CERT’s operations.

Founded in 2006, the Sri Lanka Computer Emergency Readiness Team | Coordinating Centre (Sri Lanka CERT|CC), is Sri Lanka’s National CERT and a fully owned subsidiary of ICTA under the supervision of the Ministry of Telecommunications and Digital Infrastructure. It is mandated with the task of protecting Sri Lanka’s Information and Information Systems infrastructure. Its services range from responding to and investigating information security breaches, to preventing security breaches by way of awareness creation, security assessments and security capability building. It is a member and the national point of contact, for both the Asia Pacific Computer Emergency Response Team (APCERT) and the Forum of Incident Response Security Teams (FIRST), which are regional and global associations respectively, formed to coordinate security efforts between nations.