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GFirst 5th Annual Conference
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Call for Papers

The Government Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams “GFIRST” Program Committee is soliciting original contributions for their 2009 annual Conference. Papers should fit into one of the tracks within the Conference theme: GFIRST5: The 5 Pillars of Cyber Security:  Threat - Vulnerability - Attack & Detection - Mitigation - Reflection. 
The GFIRST Program Committee welcomes original contributions. You can submit your proposal online 
There are six subject tracks for the Conference:
Track 1: Threat
Sessions may focus on methods and procedures for identifying and tracking malicious entities and activities. Some suggested topics are:
  • Latest threats and incident trends, (such as spyware, unsolicited e-mail, and phishing attacks)
  • Role of Cyber Security in Intelligence Fusion
  • Cyber security trends as seen by government leaders, law enforcement and private industry
  • Relative skills of threat actors
  • Threat Data Collection and Mining
Track 2: Vulnerability
Sessions may focus on processes for dealing with vulnerabilities throughout the vulnerability lifecycle. Some suggested topics are:
  • Vulnerability handling / Patch Management
  • SCADA/control systems
  • Handheld Security (Cell Phones, PDAs)
  • Software Assurance Goals and Progress
  • Removable Media
  • Architecture Impacts
Track 3: Attack & Detection
Sessions may focus on the identification phase of incident response. Some suggested topics are:
  • Response team operational issues and tools
  • Traffic monitoring, intrusion detection, and real-time situational awareness
  • Privacy protection in incident data collection
  • Distributed (multi-analyst) Monitoring
  • Correlation within and outside of your organization
Track 4: Mitigation
Sessions may focus on plans and improvements of actions designed to reduce or avoid the effects of incidents. Some suggested topics are:
  • National Response Framework
  • Incident response
  • Integrated cyber security and physical emergency management plans and actions
  • Response team cooperation; methods and techniques for sharing, collaboration, and discussion of legal issues
  • Computer forensics
  • The Government’s DNSSEC process inside and outside of .gov
Track 5: Reflection
Sessions may focus on topics related to the continuous process improvement and or capturing of lessons learned. Some suggested topics are:
  • Challenges with Web 2.0 (Secure? Social Nets, wiki’s, blogs)
  • Cultural challenges in Cyber Response
  • Risk assessment and information analysis
  • Software assurance
  • Lessons learned from establishing CSIRTs
  • New techniques/technologies
  • Government regulations for cyber security
  • Successful methods for Public/Private Sector collaboration/coordination/liaison to secure cyberspace
The example topics above are suggestions; however, other related topics will be considered for inclusion.
Track 6: CHIPS
Sessions will be directed to law enforcement interested in incident response, vulnerability handling, and forensics 
Target Conference Audience

This year, the Conference is expected to attract more than 1000 GFIRST members, cyber incident responders, CIOs/CISOs, law enforcement personnel supporting cyber security issues, academia, and representatives from private sector incident response and security teams.
Time Slots

Conference presentations are generally 45 minutes to 2 hours in length, including allotted Question & Answer time. You will be notified by a member of the committee for your assigned time slot as soon as the program agenda is finalized.
**NOTE: Papers on other appropriate topics will also be considered**
Authors must obtain employer, client, or government releases prior to submitting final materials. All presentations will be available on the US-CERT portal and from a special link from the US-CERT website as PDF files unless special arrangements are required.
It is important that your presentation/class have the following characteristics:
·         Topical
·         Original
·         Address multiple stakeholders
Other aspects that will be considered for selection include the following:
·         Informative
·         In-depth
·         Lively
·         Interactive
·         Practical application of information
Please note that you should NOT present with the aim of gaining the audience’s interest in any commercial application or product; so please, no marketing papers.
Submissions must reflect original work and must adequately document any overlap with previously published or simultaneously submitted papers from any of the authors. If authors have any doubts regarding whether such overlap exists, they should contact the program chairs prior to submission.
Process of Selection

The Program Committee will evaluate all submissions based on quality and relevance. All submissions are held in confidence prior to publication in the proceedings.
Submissions received after the deadline (see “Important Dates” below) may not be considered unless the program chair has granted an extension. When employer, client, or government authorization is needed, it is the responsibility of the author(s) to obtain such authorization prior to submitting the final materials.
Accepted papers will be presented by their author(s) and will be published in the Conference proceedings with associated speaker biographies and photographs (unless other arrangements are requested in advance). After the Conference, presentations may also be published on the GFIRST secure portal.
Presenters will not be reimbursed for travel to and from the Conference, per diem, and hotel. No honorarium is provided for speakers.
Copyright

GFIRST requires a nonexclusive copyright license for all the papers presented at the conference and for the presentation materials. This includes distribution on the US-CERT secure portal.
Important Dates
·         Call For Papers Due - May 15, 2009 - DATE
·         Notification of Acceptance – June 1, 2009.
·         Biographies & Executive Summaries Materials Due – June 15, 2009.
·         Final Presentations Due - August 14, 2009
 
Questions
If you have any questions about the Conference or submission process or if you require more information, please send your query to gfirst@us-cert.gov.