14 DAY TRIAL // Europol is making some serious moves in its efforts to fight cybercrime as efficiently as possible, and apart from sealing partnerships with security companies, the agency has started collaboration with Barclays financial institution.
Barclays is a multinational company headquartered in London, offering banking and financial services. It deals with cyber attacks on a constant basis, which offers the possibility of gathering different types of information about the threat actors and emerging attack trends.
Europol activity depends on collaboration with banks
On Monday, Europol announced that its European Cybercrime Center (EC3) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the company, thus taking a first formal step towards possible tighter cooperation in the future.
The move is designed to help combat digital threats impacting the financial sector in general and allows the two parties to share strategic information as well as expertise and statistical data.
Rob Wainwright, the director of Europol, said that the agency’s work is greatly influenced by the collaboration with banks and other bodies in the financial sector.
Agreement strengthens bank's defenses
Troels Oerting, former head of the EC3, now CISO (Chief Information Security Officer) at Barclays Group, said that technological developments cause financial services to go through numerous changes that open the door for both opportunities and challenges.
“Digital adoption and the integration of technology into people’s lives is changing the way our customers and clients do business with us, but it’s set against the backdrop of new risks such as cyber attacks,” he said.
The MoU should prove mutually beneficial as Barclays would improve its defenses, while Europol can collect information to track the activity of crime groups across Europe, thus gaining insight into the attack methods and their variation.
EC3’s pool of threat intelligence increases, each partner expanding the network of sensors into cybercriminal actions.
Until now, the agency has signed MoUs mostly with multiple security firms and groups, Intel, Kaspersky, CCIS and Mnemonic Intelligence being some of them.