CREST Focus Groups

CREST Focus Groups help us to continually monitor best practice in Penetration Testing, Threat Intelligence, Incident Response, Intelligence-Led Testing and SOC.

They also aid CREST in the development of its accreditation and certification requirements, ensuring that they remain fit for purpose and keep abreast of technological advancements.

Each group provides a sector specific focus for members and offer the opportunity for them to benefit from purposeful networking opportunities. Membership is open to any representative from a member company accredited to the discipline. Each Group has the following responsibilities:

Review membership accreditation processes;
Review related examination syllabuses;
Provide feedback to the CREST Assessors on examination content and quality, via their Focus Group Sub-Committee;
Provide feedback on discipline related issues;
Horizon-scan upcoming social, technological, economic, legal, regulatory, political and ethical factors that may impact their specialist area;
Provide direction to CREST, its initiatives and support related government initiatives;
Support Industry Advisory Groups.

Our Terms of Reference document provides key information and defines the terms that apply to all CREST’s Focus Groups and their Sub-Committees. Please note that due to the geographical spread and number of accredited companies, the split and number of seats varies for each Focus Group. Furthermore, where not all disciplines are represented across the regions, this would be reflected in the sub-committee composition.

Each Focus Group is run by an elected Sub-Committee of members globally with the number of seats per region based on the number of accredited companies in each region.

If you are interested in learning more about the activities of these Focus Groups, please email [email protected]

Penetration Testing Focus Group Sub-Committee Members

EMEA	Asia	Australasia	Americas
Vincent Goovaerts, Kroll	Phil Arkwright, WithSecure	Chathura Abeydeera, KPMG Australia	Patrick Cleary, Emagined Security Inc
Miguel Marques, Quorum Cyber	Faizal Ashruf, UST	Abartan Dhakal, Stickman Cyber	Taylor Smith, Pivot Point Security
Tim Reed, Sentrium Security Ltd	Manish Chawda, Pragma Pte Ltd	Jack Rutherford, Triskele Labs	Tony UcedaVelez, Versprite (Vice-Chair)
Boglarka Ronto, Resillion (Chair)	Cameron Leong, Centurion
Abhijeet Udas, NCC Group	Samuel Pua, WatchTowr
Tom Wedgbury, Nettitude Group	Louis Truong, VSEC
William Wright, Closed Door Security

Incident Response Focus Group

EMEA	Asia	Australasia	Americas
Stefano Maccaglia, RSA	Jason Ka Lee, PwC Hong Kong (Vice-Chair)	Chathura Abeydeera, KPMG	David Brilliant, Alvarez & Marsal
Benn Morris, 3B Data Security (Chair)
Adrian Shaw, Nettitude Group

Threat Intelligence

EMEA	Australasia
Oliver Church, Orpheus Cyber (Chair)	Jason Smart, PwC
Rob Dartnall, Security Alliance (Vice-Chair)
Oliver Fairbank, Northern Trust (Co-opted member)
Oliver Fay, Accenture
Matthew Hull, NCC Group
Thomas Padden, BAE Systems Digital Intelligence
Grace Tryphona, Nettitude

CREST Intelligence-Led Testing Focus Group

EMEA	Asia	Australasia
Dominic Chell, MDSec	Saeid Atabaki, Trustwave	Chathura Abeydeera, KPMG (Vice-Chair)
Matt Lorentzen, Cyberis (Chair)
Doug McLeod, Nettitude Group
Frederic Vleminckx, DXC Technology

CREST Security Operations Centre (SOC) Focus Group

EMEA	Asia/Australasia
Leigh Collett, Accenture (Chair)	Ramesh Naidu, Vigilant Asia (Vice-Chair)
Alan Freeland, DigitalXRAID	Aneesh Jayakumar, Cyberproof
John Lodge, Socura
Martin Riley, Bridewell Consulting Ltd

Industry Advisory Group
The Industry Advisory Groups (IAG) are an independent forum for senior professionals who discuss current industry topics and provide advice to CREST on the role it should play in supporting the buying community. Meetings operate under the Chatham House Rule.

Representatives from the buying community can engage with our Industry Advisory Group, giving buyers a role in supporting CREST policy and practice.

Each CREST Council will be establishing their own groups to focus on the buying community’s specific needs in their region. IAGs in the UK and Australia are already in place.

If you are a buyer of cyber security services and would like to get involved in any of our Industry Advisory Groups, or as a member you know of a buyer who would like to be involved, please email Elaine Luck on [email protected].

Diversity and Inclusion Group
CREST’s Diversity and Inclusion Group was established to look at all areas of diversity and inclusion in the cyber security industry.

The purpose of the group is to support the development of inclusion practices and the integration of diversity issues across all aspects of the technical cyber security industry. Through monthly calls, the group helps to ensure that all actions set out from CREST reports and workshops are carried out and that recommendations are made to the CREST International Council about how to move these actions forward.

The group is also responsible for the planning and direction of CREST’s Access to Cyber Security Day events that aim to encourage more people into cyber security careers and help make the industry a good place to work for everyone.

Members include: