State of the Practice of Computer Security Incident Response Teams ...

These early teams have become leaders in the Asia Pacific region, helping teams within their
constituency and country get started and supporting incident response efforts not only in their
country but globally. They have also been highly instrumental in the creation of various
working groups for Asia Pacific CSIRTs.
2.3.4.1 Creation of the Asia Pacific Security Incident Response Coordination
Working Group
There was a great interest by the Asia Pacific teams in the regional meetings of the European
teams, and they started similar activities to look at approaches for coordinating CSIRT collaboration
and data sharing for the teams in that area. This resulted in the formation of the
Asia Pacific Security Incident Response Coordination (APSIRC) Working Group in 1997.
This working group was formed as an outgrowth of work by the Asia Pacific Networking
Group (APNG) 28 [Ito 03].
The development of the APSIRC Working Group (APSIRC WG) was spearheaded by
CERTCC-KR, SingCERT, and JPCERT/CC. The main function and services of the working
group was to provide points of contact for the various member teams and to also provide resources
and assistance for newly forming teams in the area [Ito 03]. Most of the initial team
members were national teams such as the CSIRTs for Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, and Korea.
2.3.4.2 Creation of Asia Pacific Computer Emergency Response Team
In 2003 the APSIRC WG was transitioned into a new group, the Asia Pacific Computer
Emergency Response Team (APCERT). The APCERT has both a steering committee and a
secretariat to provide organizational support and direction. Its initiatives and goals involve
developing a regional and operational framework for not only the sharing of information and
incident data between members of APCERT but also the coordination of incident response
efforts. APCERT is also looking into projects concerning accreditation of members, methods
for collecting membership fees, and methods for developing and delivering training for new
and existing teams [Ito 03].
APCERT full members as of August 2003 include [Ito 03]
• AusCERT - Australian Computer Emergency Response Team, Australia
• BKIS - Bach Khoa Internetwork Security Center, Vietnam
• CCERT - CERNET Computer Emergency Response Team, Republic of China
• CERTCC-KR - Computer Emergency Response Team Coordination Center-Korea, Korea
• CNCERT/CC - China Computer Emergency Response Team Coordination Center, Republic
of China
28
See for more information on the Asia Pacific Networking Group.
28 CMU/SEI-2003-TR-001