On February 22, Provision No. 1/2021 of the Chief of the Cabinet of Ministers (the “Provision”) was published in the Official Gazette, creating the National Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT.ar). CERT.ar aims to coordinate the management of security incidents at the national level and provide assistance in those that affect entities and jurisdictions of the National Public Sector (defined in subsection “a” of Article 8 of Law No. 24,156).
As established in the Provision, the public health emergency caused by COVID-19 has led to intensive use of technological platforms and, as a result, there has been a considerable increase in information security risks and threats. For this reason, it is necessary to keep the means for the effective management of security incidents and the provision of necessary assistance in situations affecting entities and jurisdictions of the National Public Sector up to date.
CERT.ar’s functions include the following:
- Administer and manage information on security incident reports in entities and jurisdictions of the National Public Sector;
- Provide technical advice on incidents in computer systems reported by entities and jurisdictions;
- Coordinate actions to be taken after a security incident with other programs and security incident response teams in the country;
- Contribute to increasing the capacity for prevention, alert, detection, and recovery from computer security incidents that may affect critical assets in the country;
- Interact and cooperate with teams from other countries;
- Keep records of statistics and establish metrics at the national level;
- Coordinate the management of computer security incidents that affect critical resources at the national level;
- Promote the development of prevention, detection, alert, and recovery capabilities for responding to security incidents; and
- Cooperate with provincial governments and the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires in the management of security incidents.
