FIRST stands for the Forum of Incident Response and Security Teams. It is a global network that brings together trusted incident response teams so they can share threat information, compare indicators, and coordinate defensive actions. The key idea is not just communication, but prebuilt trust: members already have agreed ways to exchange sensitive details quickly and safely.
In cyber security, this matters because incidents often spread across organizations, vendors, and borders. A local team may see malware, phishing, or abuse first, but a network like FIRST helps confirm what others are observing, speed up triage, and improve containment. In practice, these collaborations support playbooks, escalation paths, and lessons learned after an incident. They are especially useful when defenders need to move fast without exposing unnecessary data, since trusted sharing is more effective than ad hoc coordination during a crisis.