About CSFI:

The Cyber Security Forum Initiative (CSFI) is a non-profit organization headquartered in Omaha, NE and in Washington DC with a mission "to provide Cyber Warfare awareness, guidance, and security solutions through collaboration, education, volunteer work, and training to assist the US Government, US Military, Commercial Interests, and International Partners." CSFI was born out of the collaboration of dozens of experts, and today CSFI is comprised of a large community of over 212,000 Cyber Security and Cyber Warfare professionals from the government, military, private sector, and academia. Our amazing members are the core of all of our activities, and it is for them that we are pushing forward our mission.

CSFI was founded on March 6, 2009 by Mr. Paul de Souza, a Chief Security Engineer for AT&T looking to find answers about the shift in hacking to more political and militaristic activity. Mr. de Souza was on the front lines of what history may call the first preludes to cyber warfare, and he continues to rally the community around Cyber issues.

CSFI is founded on 3 main pillars supporting our mission: Collaboration, Knowledge-Sharing, and Training/Education. Our collaboration efforts have helped to break down stovepipes and "closed networks" that exists inside government and industry to enable greater information sharing and increased capabilities. We practice what we preach and have developed a capability to collaborate on special projects to breakdown, decompose, and develop threats and topics to create white papers, analytical products on unique and sophisticated cyber attacks, and not only show problems, but solutions. Such collaboration has created countermeasures that promote a stronger cyber national security posture, most recently with advanced countermeasures for the Stuxnet attack and a Layer 7 DOS attack threatening millions of computers systems.

Complimentary to our collaboration efforts, CSFI is engaged in creating Cyber Warfare training materials to promote a stronger background for our men and women in uniform and also throughout the DOD community. CSFI is in a unique position to attract some of the foremost Cyber Warfare Strategists, Hackers, and Intelligence Professionals to develop high caliber training on a topic that has yet to be fully defined let alone explored and explained.

Due to our increasing size and reach CSFI has sub-divided into multiple divisions, the most active of which are the: CSFI-CWD (Cyber Warfare Division) and CSFI-LPD (Law and Policy Division).

CSFI-CWD (Cyber Warfare Division) focuses on the Cyber Warfare domain, tactics, techniques, strategies, and methods. This is a sensitive topic, but is one of our most exciting areas of growth.

CSFI-LPD (Law and Policy Division) aims to integrate legal and policy thinking and expertise in cyber security initiatives by developing IT and cyber law/criminal law/LOAC arguments and concepts to support in the defending against current cyber threats, managing cyber incidents and building a comprehensive cyber security framework. This division is intended to invite all professionals contributing to cyber security from their specific area of expertise. While the primary target group is legal and policy experts, the division is intended to offer content of interest and relevance to many other experts involved in cyber incident handling with the background of information technology, law enforcement, intelligence, military or economy.

We take pride in our efforts to integrate, collaborate, and make the Cyber environment safer and more secure for all participants. We appreciate all of our members, and we appreciate your support to help further our mission through joint efforts with your company.

US Army (ret) Lt. Col. Mark Coffin was the Cyber Branch Lead for U.S. Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM). Coffin's specialties include Open Source Exploitation, Physical Security, Operations Security, Vulnerability Testing and Assessments, Information Assurance, Social Engineering, Information Operations Planning and Execution, Computer Network Operations (D/E/A). Special thanks to Anthony M Freed from Tripwire for the interview.

Disclaimer

The Cyber Security Forum Initiative (CSFI) is a privately owned and operated, independent, non-profit entity incorporated in Omaha, Nebraska. Although CSFI strongly supports the defense of the United States and U.S. allies through the provision of cyber security-oriented educational and training programs in the United States, in other NATO countries, and in countries that are identified as “non-NATO major allies,” CSFI is neither a part of, nor represents in any capacity, any U.S. Government agency, including any of the agencies of the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC), nor any other governmental entity in the U.S. or in any other country.

For purposes of clarification, the term “U.S. allies” is defined as other NATO countries and “major non-NATO allies,” which are identified in 22 C.F.R. § 120.32. CSFI may, at its sole discretion, conduct cybersecurity educational or training programs in countries other than members of NATO or “major non-NATO allies” with which the U.S. trades freely, but which are not part of a defense treaty alliance with the U.S., such as Ireland and Switzerland. In no event, however, shall CSFI operate in countries, or in cooperation with persons or parties, for which a U.S.-based person or entity is required to obtain an export license or other approval, unless the required license or approval has been issued by the U.S. Department of State’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security, or the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Controls, whichever is applicable.