Recent news
16-09-2010
Special unit to tackle cybercrime
Cybercrime is a growing threat to society. In the battle against digital crime Fox-IT has combined all its expertise within a new unit. This special unit will track down and prevent cybercrime, assist organisations and authorities to be prepared and investigate incidents. Fox-IT will offer these services mainly to governments, financial institutions and the critical infrastructure, but they are accessible to all organisations.
Espionage, hacking, fraud and theft: digital crime is on the increase. The Netherlands General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD) and national police organisation the KLPD have been warning of this for years. The rise can be attributed to the growing professionalism of cybercriminals and the advance of the internet in the fast-growing ‘emerging markets’ nations. Stealing information, crippling a website or manipulating online payment traffic are now all widespread. There are also increased consequences from such incidents.
The new Fox-IT Cybercrime unit is entering the fray. It offers services to banks, authorities, critical infrastructures and companies with major commercial interests. The Fox-IT security experts are drawn from a number of disciplines: some have a hacker mindset and get underneath the skin of the attacker. Others are malware experts, botnet experts or cybercrime consultants. All the team members have been screened by the Dutch government.
Offering protection, taking measures and responding
The Cybercrime unit will focus on protection, measures and incident response. The team offers protection by testing organisations’ IT security, just as hackers will. Consultants prepare the organisation, the processes and the systems to withstand incidents and attacks. Monitoring, the digital equivalent of an alarm system, can detect these types of criminality. The Cybercrime unit will also be snooping across the internet to produce digital weather reports. When an incident occurs the unit takes the necessary steps in collaboration with Fox-IT’s forensic unit. An incident response team swings into action immediately, limits further damage and ensures that the client is able to get back to business quickly. Recording and analysing network traffic collects a wealth of information which can help to track down the perpetrators. Here the experts work closely with the police and legal authorities to ensure that criminals are tracked down, caught and prosecuted.
“An important development in the fight against cybercrime is public and private collaboration,” notes Lodewijk van Zwieten, National Public Prosecutor for Cybercrime. “We regularly work hand-in-hand in our investigation, and we applaud Fox-IT’s institution of a special unit to this end.”
About Fox-IT
Fox-IT is an IT Security company headquartered in the Netherlands with branches in Britain and the Caribbean. It provides special global security and intelligence solutions for authorities and important social organisations. Its core activities are developing solutions to protect confidential information, conducting digital criminal investigations, fighting cybercrime and producing analysis products for tracing services.
