Finnish cybersecurity vendor F-Secure has become the latest industry player to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Europol, in a move designed to improve co-operation in the fight against cybercrime.
Signed at Europol’s headquarters in The Hague, the agreement will allow for the “exchange of expertise, statistics and strategic information” in a more formalized manner.
It comes on the back of several similar MoU announcements between big name security vendors and Europol’s European Cybercrime Center (EC3).
Intel Security, Kaspersky Lab, FireEye, Group-IB and others have all inked deals in the past few years to build closer ties with Europol – an effort which will certainly improve law enforcement’s ability to deal with breaking threats.
The EU-wide police organization has also signed agreements with the likes of the European Banking Federation, Barclays and ING Group to improve information sharing on threats to the financial sector.
F-Secure cybersecurity adviser, Erka Koivunen, claimed that it is “only natural” for the police to turn to private IT security companies for help in cases.
“F-Secure has excellent insights on how malicious software works, how practical attacks are conducted and how they get detected,” he told Infosecurity by email.
“Our threat intelligence machinery gets information from all over the world and we have been able to uncover most of the really nasty threats out there from their early stages onward.”
As an MoU, there are few other details provided, aside from a clearly stated “wish to work in good faith and in understanding to help each other to succeed in our respective goals,” Koivunen explained.
Improved access to threat intelligence and skills is essential for law enforcement, which struggles to call upon the necessary resources internally – especially on big cases.
That was part of the reasoning behind an agreement between Trend Micro and the UK’s National Crime Agency last year, which will see the two team up on full investigations – from start to finish.