Civil society CERT (CiviCERT)
The Civil society CERT (CiviCERT) is a Computer Emergency Response Team with special focus on civil society and activism online cases. CiviCERT is an international network of rapid responders, digital security helpdesks, and infrastructure providers that are mainly focused on supporting groups and organisations striving towards social justice and the defence of human and digital rights. It is a professional framing for the rapid response community’s distributed CERT-like efforts, accredited by Trusted Introducer, the European network of trusted computer emergency response teams (CERTs).
Given its independent status outside of existing organisations, CiviCERT can be seen as a neutral coordinating centre for technical civil society organisations, it is open and participatory, as any civil society group could apply to join
CiviCERT’s current work includes:
- The Digital First Aid Kit (DFAK) – a resource for rapid responders, as well as a tool for contacting CiviCERT organisations
- A mailing list for discussions related to CiviCERT and the Rapid Response Network open to new members
- A private mailing list, open only to trusted individuals, for confidential threat intelligence sharing
- A Malware Information Sharing Platform (MISP) instance reserved to trusted members
- The Suspicious Email Submitter project
Digital First Aid Kit (DFAK)
The Digital First Aid Kit (DFAK) aims to provide preliminary support for people facing the most common types of digital threats. The DFAK is a free resource to help rapid responders, digital security trainers, tech savvy activists to better protect themselves and the communities they support against the most common types of digital threats. It can also be used by activists, human rights defenders, bloggers, journalists or media activists that want to learn more about how they can protect themselves and support others.
It is a collaborative effort of the Rapid Response Community and beyond. Groups that have previously contributed to the effort include Access Now, Computer Incident Response Center, the Digital Defenders Partnership, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Freedom House, Front Line Defenders, Global Voices, Hivos, Internews, Institute for War & Peace Reporting, Open Technology Fund, Qurium, and individual security experts who are working in the field of digital security and rapid response.
The Digital First Aid Kit is an open source project that accepts outside contributions. Its content is licensed as Creative Commons BY-SA 4.0 License. The code is licensed as GNU General Public License version 3.0.