EC3 announces industry partnership in fight against cyber crime

Europol's European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) has partnered with security and threat intelligence firm AnubisNetworks to help fight the global threat of cyber crime.

EC3 and AnubisNetworks will exchange expertise, statistics and other strategic information under a memorandum of understanding (MoU).

The fight against the growing problem of cyber crime requires co-operation between law enforcement and private industry, EC3 said in a statement.

The partnership with AnubisNetworks is another step towards such public-private partnerships and will be beneficial in operations such as the takedown of botnets, the statement said.

EC3 head of operations Paul Gillen said his firm hopes to benefit from AnubisNetworks' insight and strong competence in the cyber crime field.

“This will further enhance our ability to target the most active criminals behind the development and distribution of malware and, through our member states and partners, inflict lasting damage on these criminal networks,” he said.

AnubisNeworks CEO Francisco Fonseca said his company is committed to providing international law enforcement agencies with the tools needed to face cyber crime head on.

“By integrating the public and private sectors, we are looking forward to addressing the dangers of today's insecure world with data-driven resources and our world-class expertise,” he said.

City of London Police commissioner Adrian Leppard recently told a NEDForum summit in London the only way to deal with cyber crime is for law enforcement to partner with industry and harden targets.

He said law enforcement organisations around the world are now looking to partner with business and industry to help them to protect the global economy, because they hold all the critical data.

 “It is clear that although we are getting better at dealing with cyber crime, law enforcement with scale cyber crime society is facing. We are never going to enforce our way out of the problem,” said Leppard.