Zach Nunn: “Senators Santorum, Kyl, and I are offering today an amendment to provide $2 million for fiscal year 1997 for the…”

“Senators Santorum, Kyl, and I are offering today an amendment to provide $2 million for fiscal year 1997 for the computer emergency response team associated with the Software Engineering Institute at the Carnegie-Mellon University. The computer emergency response team [CERT] has operated since 1988 under the sponsorship of the Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency [DARPA]. Its missions are to respond to computer security emergencies and intrusions on the Internet, to serve as a central point for identifying vulnerabilities to hackers, and to conduct research to improve the security of existing systems. The number of computer emergencies handled by CERT has grown from 132 in 1989 to nearly 2,500 in 1995. In addition to this rising tide of incidents, the severity of the incidents and the damage caused by the intrusions has increased significantly. During a hearing which I chaired last month before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, we learned that DARPA had decided that the CERT operation is not the kind of cutting-edge research project on which they are focused, and that they were planning to reduce their funding to CERT for fiscal year 1997 by 75 percent. While we agree with DARPA's view of its priorities, a funding reduction of this magnitude would have devastated the ability of CERT to respond to the growing volume of inquiries, and we do not wish to see the CERT capability disappear.”