Trend Micro’s Rik Ferguson discusses liaison with International Law Enforcement Agencies and the two leading online scams, CEO Fraud and Ransomware.
E: Can you give us some insight into Trend Micro’s relationship with Europol and Interpol, and law enforcement in general?
Rik – My work with Europol is part of an International cyber security advisory group. Europol and Interpol has reached out to the private sector and industry so they can expand their domain expertise and their reach. Obviously they’re very tightly involved with the European national law enforcement agencies (LEAs) and act as a coordinating body for the LEAs. They understand there is a wealth of intelligence and information that can be gleaned from the private industry to help out and they coordinate those relationships. Though organisations like Trend Micro do also have one to one relationships with pretty much every local law enforcement body anyway, such as the National Crime Authority (UK) and Dutch High-Tech Crime Unit. Trend Micro also has one full time staff member at Interpol’s Cyber Innovation Centre in Singapore.
While in Sydney for the AISA National Conference I was in a meeting with NSW Police but it is more our Australian Trend Micro personnel, such as John Oliver who will be liaising with Australian LEAs. John is part of the FTR (Forward Threat Research) teams and this team as a whole is responsible for managing the operation for LEAs.
E: How does the relationship work, are you assisting with investigations and operations?
Rik – The LEA relationship is a two way thing – so if we discover something in the course of our own research which we think may be useful or of interest to law enforcement we will reach out and by the same token law enforcement will contact us with enquiries as to what we may have in our holdings and to seeking information from us to assist them. This may be about infrastructure or individuals and we also provide expert witness statements if matters are proceeding to court.
The relationship is controlled under a Memorandum of Understanding and non-disclosure agreements and it’s not a paid operation. It is something Trend Micro does as part of being a security provider. The most effective way to keep our customer’s security is to help take the criminals out of business…Click HERE to read full Q&A.
