The Computer Emergency Response Team, CERT, based at Carnegie Mellon University, in Pittsburgh, was a federally funded research and development center established in November 1988, after the Morris Worm brought down 10 percent of the Internet. CERT was intended to prevent major security incidents by setting up a Network Operations Center to communicate with security experts. The Center created a vulnerability disclosure program with the mission of publishing advisories about security vulnerabilities, usually after the software manufacturer had developed a patch or created a work-around to mitigate the risk of the security flaw. Security professionals relied on CERT to protect their clients’ systems and networks from intrusions. (CERT’s functions would be taken over by the Department of Homeland Security in 2004.)