CERT stands for Computer Emergency Response Team. Essentially the function of a CERT is to provide benchmark advice and best practice on issues of Computer Security with particular focus on incident prevention, handling and reporting. Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute in America has the original CERT at cert.org and they have rights to the Trademark CERT®. Regional versions of cert.org have developed in Australia, Canada, Poland and now, the UK with UKCERT™.

A CERT provides a central hub for information to help those with responsibility for Computer Security. Individual CSIRTs tend to be more focused on an implementation area such as Military, Business, Academia or government.

The point of an organisation like UKCERT™ is that it can act independantly as its roots are from an academic university background. In the UK we have a CERT like organisations for academia, govt and army.UKCERT™ is independant of a controlling organisation and as such has been able to react in an independant manner.

UKCERTs™ technicians check new releases and publish technical guidelines on how to secure software packages and operating systems to consensus levels. As an open forum UKCERT™ enlists the expertise of its membership to the common advantage.

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