The EU-funded EaPConnect project has been supporting partners in the Eastern Partnership region to build up collaboration across computer security teams in different geographic locations and disciplines, a crucial task in maintaining research and education networks supported by the project. 

In September, the project organised a workshop in Yerevan to give new or potential computer security incident response team (CSIRT) personnel from the Eastern Partnership region a good grounding in the main aspects of this work.

Award-winning expert Melanie Rieback – CEO and co-founder of Radically Open Security, the world’s first non-profit computer security consultancy company – gave the training, which covered technical, operational, legal, and organisational topics to empower participants with skills and knowledge in all aspects of the security incident handling workflow, from planning to post-analysis. The participants also got a unique opportunity to build a network of new contacts and discuss security issues with their peers.

“For me, it was very useful and important. Our mentor was very professional and the practical exercises helped us to improve our experience,” said participant Sergey Abrahamyan, a researcher at the Department of Coding and Signal Processing at the Institute of Informatics and Automation Problems of the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia (IIAP NAS RA) in Yerevan.

The workshop took place just before this year’s Eastern Partnership E-infrastructures Conference EaPEC 2019, and welcomed conference participants as well as local experts. The fifteen participants came from Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine, as well as Cyprus, Lithuania, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.

The training programme was part of the portfolio offered by TF-CSIRT, a task force coordinated by GÉANT, the pan-European research and education networking association. TF-CSIRT develops and provides services for CSIRTs, promotes the use of common standards and procedures for handling security incidents, and coordinates joint initiatives where appropriate.

The workshops provide state of the art, high-quality training to CSIRT personnel, as well as individuals with a bona-fide interest in establishing a CSIRT. 

The EaPConnect project aims to create a regional research and education network in the EU’s Eastern Partner countries namely Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. The overall objective is to decrease the digital divide, improve intra-regional connectivity and facilitate the participation of local scientists, students and academics in global research and education collaborations.

Press release