Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) Program

What this funds

The Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) program funds the development of technologies and techniques in support of U.S. Secret Service's cyber investigations and protective operations. The funding will support the development of computer forensic tools, support for cyber investigations, and research and development for unique cyber-related issues and training. Problem: Cyber criminals are rapidly weaponizing emerging technologies, leaving existing investigative methods obsolete. The U.S. Secret Service must evolve alongside technological advancements adopted by criminal enterprises. Solution: The CERT program allows the U.S. Secret Service to continue to leverage the Carnegie Mellon University-Software Engineering Institute (CMU-SEI) to develop technologies and techniques to enhance the U.S. Secret Service's protective operations. Justification: The Budget provides $0.3M for this project. The U.S. Secret Service's CERT liaison program is conducted with CMU-SEI, a Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC), which allows the U.S. Government to realize significant cost savings by leveraging participating Federal agencies' resources to accomplish shared objectives. The CERT liaison program represents the U.S. Secret Service's long-standing commitment to develop mission-critical systems, cyber investigative applications, malware analysis, and applications that identify, assess, and mitigate threats to the Nation's financial system, critical infrastructure, and persons and facilities protected by the U.S. Secret Service. Impact: CERT will continue to support the Electronic Crimes Special Agent Program, (ECSAP) as well as the Network Intrusion Program, (NITRO) with cyber-threats, cyber intrusions, software, and research on the latest technology to ensure that the U.S. Secret Service will continue to be at the forefront of cybercrime fighting technologies. CERT will enhance the Service's efforts to develop computer forensic gap area tools, development of unique investigative and forensic techniques in support of USSS cyber mission. Examples include researching critical system vulnerabilities, writing software and scripts for U.S. Secret Service cyber agents, and continuing research on best practices for forensic analysis on the continuing evolution of the "Internet of Things" (IoT) devices as well as forensics on cellular devices. USSS - R&D - 10 Research and Development Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) Program The funding will support software and computer engineers to conduct cyber-related research to assist agents and investigators in the field. Agents regularly contact CERT/SEI for assistance with digital evidence and investigations. CERT's engineers directly assist with either research or by writing software or scripts. The funding would also be utilized to provide cyber training to agents assigned to the ECSAP and NITRO. Training enhances the ability of U.S. Secret Service to maintain the latest tools, knowledge, and case assistance in the fast-evolving field of digital forensics and digital investigations.

Extracted from United States Secret Service, p. 5. Verbatim; nothing here is paraphrased.

Contracts funded by this line

1 linked contract. These are obligations — lifetime awarded money — and they are not comparable to the request above and are never added to it. No total is shown: an award linked to several lines is counted in full on each, so the sum would not be a fact.

Confidence mix · 1 medium

Linked contracts are a floor, not a census. Coverage is bounded by how distinctively a program is named and, for performer links, to RDT&E and Procurement — O&M and military construction publish no performers. Budget figures are FY2027 request dollars; contract figures are obligations. The two measure different things and must never be summed together.

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Answers come from the figures on this page and nothing else. These dollars are parsed from Homeland Security's Congressional Justification and are approximate — confirm anything that matters against the cited page.