About Us
Team Cymru Research NFP is an Illinois non-profit and a US Federal 501(c)3 organization. We are a group of technologists passionate about making the Internet more secure and dedicated to that goal. We work closely with and within Internet security communities, as well as with all manner of other organizations - after all, almost every organization in the modern world is connected to the Internet in some way or another, and they all need help to ensure that their parts of the network remain safe and secure.
Team Cymru FAQ
Q: How do I pronounce "Cymru?"
A: This is the most common question we receive. :) "Cymru" is pronounced "kum-ree." It is Welsh (a Celtic language, distantly related to Gaelic) for "Wales."
Q: Why are you called Team Cymru?
A: Two of our founders have strong ties to Wales - Rob Thomas is of Welsh descent, while Dr. Neil Long is a born and bred Welshman. They, along with the other founding members of Team Cymru, felt that this choice of name and logo would be an appropriate tribute to their Welsh heritage, and to the long and storied history of Wales.
Q: Who belongs to Team Cymru?
A: Currently, Team Cymru consists of over twenty hard-working folks who have experience in a variety of areas to include UNIX systems development (application and kernel), IP network engineering, security analysis and applications, systems and network administration, network and hard drive forensics, malware analysis, penetration testing, and a variety of other areas. Together, Team Cymru employees have over 100 years of combined experience in information and network security.
All of the members of Team Cymru are full-time staff, focused solely on the projects and activities of Team Cymru.
Q: Where is Team Cymru?
A: Team Cymru is a geographically-dispersed group of security professionals who are able to collaborate due to the benefits of the Internet. Our main office is in the Chicago, IL, US area. Our researchers have presences in the UK, Poland, Washington, US, Arizona, US, Washington D.C., US, New York, US, and California, US. We have pods of gear all over the globe. We find that our geographic dispersion provides nearly 24/7 coverage and leads to an increased quality of life for our employees.
Q: Who owns Team Cymru?
A: Team Cymru is wholly and solely owned by its founding partners. Team Cymru will never trade control for funding or donations. We remain fiercely independent because we believe it is the only way we can be an impartial Internet security advocate.
Q: When was Team Cymru founded?
A: Team Cymru was founded by Rob Thomas as an Internet security think-tank in 1998. In 2004, Team Cymru officially incorporated as a legal entity. The founding researchers are Rob Thomas, David Deitrich, Dr. Neil Long, and Stephen Gill.
Q: How do I contact Team Cymru?
A: Please see our contact page for a variety of methods of reaching us or contact us at info@cymru.com.
Q: What does Team Cymru do for the Community?
A: We endeavor to make the entire Internet more secure, more aware, and more reliable. We provide templates, sundry route-servers, and other projects in an effort to make you (yes, YOU!) safer while online. All of these are designed to support our shared mission to make the Internet - and the good folk who use it - more secure.
Community involvement and support is an important mission for Team Cymru. We are a full FIRST member and a member of OARC. We are a supporting member of MAAWG. Members of Team Cymru serve on the technical advisory board of UltraDNS, serve as Internet Systems Consortium Fellows, serve as members of the REN-ISAC TAG, and serve on the Technical Advisory Board of the Collaborative Center for Internet Epidemiology and Defenses. In the past we have been part of the NANOG Program Committee and officers of FIRST.
We work closely with other altruistic organizations such as the Anti-Phishing Working Group, the CastleCops Phishing Incident Reporting & Termination project, myNetWatchman, the NCFTA, the nsp-security family of lists, and Spamhaus.
The members of Team Cymru have collaborated with many organizations and in many forums, such as co-authoring papers on the nature and handling of DDoS with the CERT/CC. Example papers are Managing the Threat of Denial-of-Service Attacks and Trends in Denial of Service Attack Technlogy. We have authored articles such as "Cybercrime - An Epidemic" in the November 2006 issue of Queue Magazine and "the underground economy - priceless" in the December 2006 issue of ;login: Magazine.
We have contributed to several books, such as Designing Network Security by Merike Kaeo, Practical BGP by Russ White, Danny McPherson, and Srihari Sangli, Extreme Exploits by Victor Oppleman, Oliver Friedrichs, and Brett Watson, the DNS & BIND Cookbook by Cricket Liu, Hacking Exposed by Stuart McClure, Joel Scambray, and George Kurtz, and several others.
The members of Team Cymru have presented at a wide variety of gatherings, such as APNIC, ARIN, Equinix Gigabit Peering Forum, FIRST, GOVCERT.NL, IAB, IC Cyber 2006, MERIT, NANOG, SECURE at NASK, SURFnet CERT, SRUTI, CEAS, and many others.
We're world travelers, having presented in Argentina, Australia, Brasil, Canada, China, France, Germany, The Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, Taiwan, South Korea, the UK, and the US in 2006 alone. We are involved in the community we endeavor to protect because we believe outreach and personal networking are the keys to our shared success.
We have provided grants to a small number of nascent anti-malware projects, secured funding for a few worthy operational projects, and donated gear to a network forensics research team. We continue to provide hosting and services for numerous projects and teams as well.
Q: What does Team Cymru do to pay the bills?
A: We have gained a wealth of experience, expertise, and insight, and it benefits the community if we share it. Although the majority of our output is at no-cost, we do offer consulting to fund our activities and ensure we are an on-going, vibrant company. In fact the chances are good that if you are using a security product or service, Team Cymru's insight quietly makes it a bit more robust, insightful, and secure.
We have crafted partnerships with a wide variety of service providers, researchers, and vendors. Some of those with whom we work closely include Arbor Networks, Inc., AusCERT, CAIDA, CAIS/RNP, Catbird, CCERT, CERT/CC, CERT Polska, CNCERT/CC, Cyber Security Industry Alliance, Digg, DynDNS, FORTINET, Equinix, EveryDNS, F-Secure, Google, HKCERT, IBM, MainNerve, McAfee, MessageLabs, Microsoft, NISCC, OpenDNS, Packet Clearing House, Simplicita, Sunbelt Software, Support Intelligence, Symantec, Trend Micro, UltraDNS, US-CERT, VeriSign, Websense Security Labs, XS4ALL, ZoneAlarm, and over 700 more.
Please visit our Services section to learn a bit more about how we can help you improve your product or service or contact us at info@cymru.com.
Q: Why isn't Team Cymru more well known?
A: Team Cymru made a conscious decision to work exclusively with trusted partners in the IT Security Community. We are comfortable and successful being the behind the scenes partner. However, within these circles we are well known, including being recognized as one of the 15 Most Influential in Security by eWeek.
Q: What industries does Team Cymru serve?
A: The primary industries we serve are CERTs/CSIRTs, ISP's, content providers, security ISVs and financial institutions.
For example, large financial institutions suffer most from online crime, and we good folk all suffer when our financial accounts are compromised. We provide support to the financial industry's efforts to reduce the incidence of online crime and make online crime less profitable for the miscreants.
If you would like to discuss our services, please contact us at info@cymru.com.
Q: If I have other questions, who should I contact?
A: Please see our contact page for a variety of methods of reaching us. We pride ourselves in quick, concise responses to your inquiries.
