UNT Forum for Incident Response and Security Team (UNT-FIRST)

Function

The UNT Forum for Incident Response and Security Team, UNT-FIRST, was established in the Computing Center in 1997. It is a non-voting body chosen to help UNT computer support staff, users, supervisors, legal and law enforcement authorities, and other appropriate entities to address potential and actual information security issues and problems. UNT-FIRST will be governed by UNT Computing Policies and Information Resources Management policies established by the Texas Department of Information Resources.

A representative from the Computing Center's Information Assurance Team will serve as chairperson for UNT-FIRST and will regularly report committee findings to the university's Information Resources Manager (the Associate Vice President for Computing and Communications Services) or designee. Members shall be appointed by computing directors of the areas represented below and shall report security issues as related to their areas of representation.

Members of UNT-FIRST may be called upon to act in emergency situations involving security violations or business continuity efforts when a security investigation exceeds the resources of the Information Assurance team.

Mission

The mission of UNT-FIRST includes the following in the area of security:

- Keep abreast of current security issues, threats, policies and laws;
- Keep abreast of UNT computer systems, network configurations, and contact information for system administrators;
- Keep abreast of potential technical resources to assist with security problems;
- Establish procedures for effective handling of security incidents (problems, breaches);
- Enable system administrators to focus on technical problems during a crisis;

Composition

UNT-FIRST shall be composed of representatives from the following areas:

- Central Web Support
- Data Communications
- Databases (Oracle)
- Distributed Learning (WebCT)
- EIS (PeopleSoft)
- Helpdesk
- Information Assurance Team
- Messaging
- MS Project Team
- MS SharePoint Team
- Operations
- Storage Area Network Team
- VMware Team

To contact UNT-First, please email first@unt.edu