Barclays Sets Precedent With Cybercrime Analyst Appointment

In an effort to promote information sharing and improve its response time to looming cybersecurity threats, Barclays has become the first bank to have a full-time analyst working alongside law enforcement agents and cybercrime experts at Interpol’s Cyber Fusion Centre, ZDNet reported Monday (Feb. 8).

The research and development facility, based in Interpol’s Global Complex for Innovation (IGCI) in Singapore, “provides a neutral, global platform for law enforcement, the private sector and academia to work collaboratively, sharing actionable threat information and developing operational responses,” a statement from the international police organization explained.

“The scale and complexity of today’s cyberthreat landscape means cooperation across all sectors is vital,” IGCI Executive Director Noboru Nakatani said, noting that the agreement marked an ongoing effort to foster collaboration and development in public-private partnerships.

“Interpol’s agreement with Barclays is an important step in our continued efforts to develop a global alliance in combating cyberthreats, which are a significant issue for both the public and private sectors,” Nakatani added.

The cybercrime analyst from Barclays will join other experts who are already based at the IGCI and hail from the Cyber Defense Institute, Kaspersky Lab, LAC, NEC, SECOM, Trend Micro, the University of South Australia and the University of Waikato in New Zealand.

Through intelligence sharing, training and cyberattack mitigation awareness, the agreement hopes to formalize and grow joint cybersecurity efforts and establish recommendations that will help increase the cyberresilience of both public and private institutions, the Interpol statement continued.

Barclays Group Chief Information Security Officer Troels Oerting said: “I am proud to represent the first institution in the financial services industry to sign a comprehensive agreement with Interpol and to deploy a Barclays cybercrime analyst to the IGCI.”

“This cooperation is an important step for Barclays, and for the whole industry, to ensure business continuity, maintain security and enable trust with our customers. Preventing cybercrime­­ and keeping our citizens safe from being victims of crime in cyberspace is a global task and cannot be done without the involvement of Interpol,” Oerting concluded.