π #FIRSTCON26 has wrapped in Denver, Colorado!
The 38th Annual FIRST Conference brought together incident response teams, CERTs, government agencies, and security leaders from around the world to do what this community does best: collaborate, share intelligence, and make the ecosystem stronger.
Highlights:
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FIRST released its mid-year 2026 vulnerability forecast, projecting approximately 66,000 CVEs by year-end β a 46% overage against the initial annual forecast, driven largely by AI-assisted vulnerability discovery
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Chris Butera, Acting Executive Assistant Director for CISA's Cybersecurity Division opened the conference drawing a direct parallel between soccer team coordination and how the security community needs to operate: fast movement, shared trust, and partners who know the play before it develops
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Former US National Cyber Director Chris Inglis pushed back on rigid defense models, making the case for coalition defense β private sector, infrastructure providers, and governments operating together, not in parallel
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EPSS deployed its v2026.06.15 refresh, delivering updated exploitation probability scores for every public CVE
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New and critical security frameworks, tools, SIGs, and research insights aimed at automating defense and managing AI risk were showcased during the event
FIRST also welcomed its newly elected Board of Directors for the 2026β2027 term, appointing Logan Wilkins (Cisco, US) and welcoming back returning board member Mona Elisabeth Γstvang (mnemonic, NO). Olivier Caleff was also re-elected as Chair of the Board of Directors, beginning his second term in the role.
A huge thank you to everyone who attended, presented, and sponsored.
Sessions will be available on YouTube in the coming weeks.
Read more: https://go.first.org/RKxUj
#cybersecurity