Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) has inked a deal with cybersecurity company FireEye in an ongoing effort to combat cybercriminals in Europe.
Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) has inked a deal with cybersecurity company FireEye in an ongoing effort to combat cybercriminals in Europe.
The two announced Monday (Aug. 17) the establishment of a Memorandum Of Understanding (MoU), which will facilitate the exchange of cybercrime expertise and knowledge between the government agency and security firm.
“Law enforcement and private industry need to work together to effectively combat cybercrime, a growing problem on a global scale. The MoU with FireEye further strengthens our strategic cooperation with industry partners to target the criminals behind these crimes,” Wil van Gemert, Deputy Director of Operations at Europol, said in a statement announcing the MoU.
The MoU will mainly focus on early detection of cybercrime threats, as well as any statistical information regarding cybercrime trends.
Richard Turner, President EMEA at FireEye, said: “The threat landscape is changing every day and with this organizations need to try and stay one step ahead of the attackers. Working with Europol, means that, as well as granting early access to FireEye’s threat intelligence, FireEye will also be able to respond to requests for assistance around threats or technical indicators of compromise in order to assist Europol combating the ever increasing threat from cybercriminals.”
In the fight against cybercrime, partnerships amongst both public and private organizations are becoming a popular option.
Earlier this year, FireEye and Visa announced plans to develop tools and services that will help merchants and issuers better protect themselves from payments breaches.
Visa and FireEye’s cyber watch program is aimed at providing protection capabilities for merchants — regardless of size — the companies said in a joint news release in June. By enabling them to defend themselves against advanced cyber attacks, Visa and FireEye created a Community Threat Intelligence program to help companies recognize threat information. This program will also allow merchants and issuers to detect and respond to breaches quicker, especially breaches that may attack their IT and payment infrastructure.
Europol also recently teamed up Eurojust to bring down a major cybercriminal group operating out of the Ukraine.
The joint investigation team (JIT) targeted the high-level cybercriminals and their accomplices because they were suspected of creating and distributing two banking Trojans, known as Zeus and SpyEye. Europol confirmed the group was believed to be behind the malware, as well as channeling and cashing out the profits from its use.
The recent effort was part of a broader investigation launched by the JIT members (Austria, Belgium, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway and the United Kingdom) back in 2013. To date, the operation has resulted in the arrests of 60 individuals — more than half of which were involved in a “money mule” network taken down by Dutch law enforcement authorities.
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