In the cybersecurity world, it is not uncommon for major organizations in either public or private sectors to team up to battle hackers. Especially as attacks against key infrastructure for nation-states have escalated in recent times, these sort of InfoSec coalitions have become more necessary. Recently another major alliance was created to help bolster global cybersecurity.
As reported by Infosecurity Magazine, Europol and the Global Cyber Alliance have recently joined forces to “improve security and reduce cyber risk among global organizations.” The significance of this Memorandum of Understanding is obvious from the start. Europol is the European Union’s law-enforcement agency that serves 28 countries, while the Global Cyber Alliance is affiliated with law-enforcement agencies like the City of London Police and the Manhattan District Attorney’s office.
By pooling their resources, the two law-enforcement organizations are able to serve a broader purpose in a more powerful manner. The initial order of business in this new alliance between Europol and the Global Cyber Alliance is to, according to a GCA press release, “initially focus on improving adoption of the DMARC email validation policies, a vital tool that enables organisations to authenticate email and prevent spoofed and fraudulent email.”
This seems like a great place to start, as phishing and spear-phishing seem to be the top way hackers go at an organization these days. All of the ransomware infections and countless other cyberattacks seem to be rooted in employees opening malicious emails that mimic legitimate ones. Even worse is how convincing hackers are making some emails appear, namely making the message look like official notices from the employee’s company.
This is only the first step, however, as the new Europol and GCA alliance seeks to “strengthen our ability to work cooperatively across sectors and around the world to eliminate systemic risks to our cybersecurity.” This is an ambitious undertaking and it will be interesting to see how effective the new policies that this Memorandum of Understanding creates. Expect to hear about this more in the future.
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