The CERT Coordination Center (CERT/CC) was created at the Software Engineering Institute in November 1988 at DARPA's direction when world-wide governments began to call, as a result of the Morris worm. There was no other center to contact. CERT-CC is the world-wide coordination center of information about Internet security problems.
CERT-CC is run by the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). The SEI developed the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) (which later became Capability Maturity Model Integration, CMMI) using grant money awarded to CMU during the 1980s. The SEI and CERT/CC have been funded partially by grants, since then. Both CERT and CMMI are registered trademarks of Carnegie-Mellon University. [1] In 2003, DHS entered into an agreement with CMU to use the name CERT, as US-CERT. [2]
US-CERT is the national center for the US. Other CERTS (some of which use the name, which they've licensed from CMU) also funnel their information to CERT-CC, as does US-CERT. CERT, the name usually used when referencing CERT-CC, runs the CERT KB. [3].