Homeland Security To Partner With CERT

The partnership between the National Cyber Security Division of the federal agency and CERT will be known as US-CERT, and is intended to prevent, protect and respond to viruses and other cyber attacks on the Internet.

CERT will essentially perform the same cyber security work it has always performed, though its 26-member staff will likely increase by about 10 and its funding will also increase. Officials on Monday declined to say how much more money CERT would get.

CERT was established in 1988 after a worm crippled 10 percent of computer systems connected to the Internet. CERT reported and responded to just six Internet security "incidents" that year, but tallied 82,094 last year.

The group is part of Carnegie Mellon's Software Engineering Institute, which is run with about $50 million in federal funds a year, much of it from the Defense Department.