Europol and the RIPE NCC signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) at Europol’s headquarters in The Hague on 14 December 2016. The MoU documents the unique relationship between the RIPE NCC and Europol, with the aim of fostering continued cooperation between the two and lending one another expertise in the areas of cybercrime and Internet security. The RIPE NCC is one of the five Regional Internet Registries which manages the allocation and registration of Internet number resources such as IP addresses and autonomous system (AS) numbers. RIPE NCC has worked with Europol over the past few years, offering training courses tailored specifically to the needs of law enforcement agencies, such as searching for information in the RIPE Database as part of their investigations. The RIPE database is an essential tool for investigators because it can provide law enforcement and public safety organisations with information on which Internet Service Providers need to be contacted to get information on IP space abused to carry out illegal activities such as fraud, malware distribution, spam, etc. Europol, together with other public safety agencies, have launched a globally coordinated initiative to improve the accuracy of the databases maintained by the five RIRs, and RIPE NCC plays a critical role in this effort. “As a Regional Internet Registry, the RIPE NCC is accountable to all Internet stakeholders in our service region, including the law enforcement community. The RIPE community has a lot of technical expertise to offer law enforcement in their work to keep the Internet secure,” said Axel Pawlik, Managing Director of the RIPE NCC. “This represents an important new model for cooperation to enhance Internet security, which we hope will see growing links between the technical and law enforcement communities in the coming years,” said Paul Rendek, Director of External Relations at the RIPE NCC. “We’re proud of the work our two organisations have done over the past few years to help bring our communities closer together, and I’m pleased to formalise that relationship today.” “Cooperation with the technical community helps law enforcement improve their technical skills, which is becoming more and more important in today’s security landscape,” said Steven Wilson, head of Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3). “We believe our work with the RIPE community will help improve the safety of the Internet for all users.”
