A computer emergency response team (CERT) is an expert group that handles

computer security Computer security, cybersecurity (cyber security), or information technology security (IT security) is the protection of computer systems and networks from attack by malicious actors that may result in unauthorized information disclosure, t ...

incidents. Alternative names for such groups include computer emergency readiness team and computer security incident response team (CSIRT). A more modern representation of the CSIRT acronym is Cyber Security Incident Response Team.

History

The name "Computer Emergency Response Team" was first used in 1988 by the

CERT Coordination Center The CERT Coordination Center (CERT/CC) is the coordination center of the computer emergency response team (CERT) for the Software Engineering Institute (SEI), a non-profit United States federally funded research and development center. The CERT/C ...

(CERT-CC) at

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...

(CMU). The term CERT is registered as a trade and service mark by CMU in multiple countries worldwide. CMU encourages the use of Computer Security Incident Response Team (CSIRT) as a generic term for the handling of computer security incidents. CMU licenses the CERT mark to various organizations that are performing the activities of a CSIRT. The history of CERT, and of CSIRTS, is linked to the existence of

malware Malware (a portmanteau for ''malicious software'') is any software intentionally designed to cause disruption to a computer, server, client, or computer network, leak private information, gain unauthorized access to information or systems, de ...

, especially

computer worm A computer worm is a standalone malware computer program that replicates itself in order to spread to other computers. It often uses a computer network to spread itself, relying on security failures on the target computer to access it. It wi ...

s and

viruses A virus is a submicroscopic infectious agent that replicates only inside the living cells Cell most often refers to: * Cell (biology), the functional basic unit of life Cell may also refer to: Locations * Monastic cell, a small room ...

. Whenever a new

technology Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, scie ...

arrives, its misuse is not long in following. The first worm in the IBM

VNET VNET is an international computer networking system deployed in the mid-1970s and still in current, but highly diminished use. It was developed inside IBM and provided the main email and file-transfer backbone for the company throughout the 1980s ...

was covered up. Shortly after, a worm hit the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a ''internetworking, network of networks'' that consists ...

on 3 November 1988, when the so-called Morris Worm paralysed a good percentage of it. This led to the formation of the first computer emergency response team at Carnegie Mellon University under U.S. Government contract. With the massive growth in the use of information and communications technologies over the subsequent years, the generic term 'CSIRT' refers to an essential part of most large organisations' structures. In many organisations the CSIRT evolves into an information security operations center.

History

Global associations and teams

National or economic region teams

See also

References

External links