CERT-RO's Cimpean: Public-private partnerships needed to fight cybercrime

Privately-run companies must be part of the solution to fight cybercrime, and co-operation between the public and private sectors is needed to combat the phenomenon, Director General of the Romanian National Cyber Security and Incident Response Team (CERT-RO) Dan Cimpean told a specialist conference on Thursday. "We are doing everything we can, we are trying to co-operate, to fight cybercrime, but we need an analysis and we need to do it in a proper way, in a cost-effective way. I come from the private sector and what I do know is that, especially when it comes to cybercrime, many of the necessary capabilities are indeed in the private sector. It is clear that privately-run companies must be part of the solution if we want to fight cybercrime. I sincerely believe that, indeed, a better qualitative collaboration between the government and the private sector in the fight against cybercrime is needed," added Cimpean. According to him, the private sector understands cybercrime much better given that it is the main target of hackers. "Combining resources and capabilities is absolutely crucial to reducing the risk of cybercrime, but that is not easy to achieve. I believe the solution comes only through pragmatic public-private co-operation. The private sector is usually the target of cybercrime. Therefore, it understands these phenomena quite well. I am in favour of setting up working groups with additional tactical tasks to counteract well-established, well-defined cybercrime," said Cimpean. Good practices, as well as cybersecurity case studies designed to increase the level of knowledge of users, are on the agenda of the virtual conference "Lessons learned from cybersecurity experts. Perspectives in Romania and the United States of America" held on Thursday. The event, organised by the he Romanian Association for Information Security Assurance (ARASEC), in partnership with the United States Embassy to Romania and the Romanian National Cyber Security and Incident Response Team (CERT-RO), brought to the table a number of specialists in the area and also representatives of similar associations and the media. The AGERPRES National News Agency is a media partner. AGERPRES (RO - author: Daniel Badea, editor: Mariana Nica; EN - author: Corneliu-Aurelian Colceriu, editor: Adina Panaitescu)