Welcoming the New FIRST NetSec Special Interest Group

The MANRS community is continuously reaching out to new audiences to create more awareness around MANRS, explain the steps to implement its actions, and ultimately convince more people running networks that routing security is an important aspect that deserves top consideration.

Recently, we’ve developed a relationship with the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams (FIRST) community. FIRST brings together security experts to exchange information and cooperation on issues of mutual interest like new vulnerabilities or attacks – especially on core systems like DNS servers or the Internet as a critical infrastructure itself.

After some initial discussions about why routing is one of those core systems that needs a coordinated approach to security, we were able to hold a full-day MANRS tutorial at the 2022 FIRST Conference in Dublin in late June.

The tutorial helped participants understand the basics of BGP, how the four MANRS actions for network operators can be implemented on different platforms, details of how RPKI works, and associated demos and exercises. By the end of the day, participants recognized the importance of routing security and discussed creating a Special Interest Group (SIG) inside FIRST. The day after the tutorial, participants gathered with other interested parties and immediately decided to submit a draft charter to FIRST’s Board for approval.

In late August, the FIRST Board approved the creation of the NetSec SIG. Participation is open on many fronts, and you don’t have to be a FIRST Member.

This new SIG helps the MANRS community bring more routing security knowledge to a new audience, currently composed of 640 Teams in 101 different countries. Reaching more people and encouraging more networks to become MANRS-compliant means we all benefit from a more secure Internet.

The MANRS team and Internet Society will work with the SIG to organise trainings, tutorials, and guide its participants on how to join MANRS.

If you’re part of a community that you think could benefit from routing security knowledge and training, please let us know.