Me, myself and INTERPOL.

How I would love to just visit Singapore as a tourist! To stay here for a week, wander around the city … But not running, running, gunzo-shigoto-arbeiten, meetings-presentations-more meetings and other work-trabajo-labor and so on in various other languages. Alas, not this time. It was more like this…

You wake up in the morning after the Starmus conference and realize that you can only dream of a bit of peace and quiet. From a sweltering Switzerland we immediately head (you could say without regaining consciousness) east for an equally hot Singapore. That’s where the INTERPOL World 2019 exhibition/conference is being held. It’s an event that brings together representatives of state, non-government and private sectors from INTERPOL member countries.

I talk a lot about the importance of international cooperation between law enforcement agencies and private cybersecurity organizations. Cybercrime knows no geographical boundaries, which is why it’s necessary to act together to fight it. It’s just that there’s a bit of a worldwide problem nowadays with this “together” thing. So, any real, ongoing initiatives aimed at international cooperation are worth their weight in gold! And we’re proud of our many years of work with INTERPOL. Since 2014, we’ve been a strategic partner, signed our first cooperation agreement and supported the opening in Singapore of the Digital Crime Center as part of the special IGCI (INTERPOL Global Complex for Innovation) unit dealing with cybercrime investigations. This center is where the technical side of INTERPOL’s investigations are conducted.

And, so, on July 3 in Singapore, we extended the cooperation agreement with INTERPOL for five years. Good work chaps!

The only chance to win the fight against cybercrime is #cybersecurity experts and law enforcement to act together. Just the way we do with @INTERPOL_HQ https://t.co/VLxfbuOiZ3 https://t.co/oJWXGmJWzo

— Eugene Kaspersky (@e_kaspersky) July 3, 2019

Our experts will assist organizations in investigating cybercrime, conduct training for their employees, and provide data about the latest cyberthreats that we detect. INTERPOL’s Tim Morris, Executive Director of Police Services, was at the signing ceremony. I also had a meeting with the new head of the department for combating cybercrime, Craig Jones. It’s good to know we’re on the same page and have a common goal – to work together to reduce the criminal elements in cyberspace and the damage that they cause.

Apart from meetings and signing ceremonies, we also had our own stand – it is an exhibition, after all – demonstrating our solutions for law enforcement agencies and how our operating system can be used to protect smart cities (a hot topic right now!). We also received delegations from a couple of dozen countries.

Photos from the exhibition:

Our booth:

And the cherry on the cake… a visit to our stand by Secretary General of INTERPOL Jürgen Stock:

It was a pleasure to receive Mr Jürgen Stock, Secretary General of @INTERPOL_HQ at our booth at #INTERPOLWorld 2019 pic.twitter.com/2tES38bJEn

— Eugene Kaspersky (@e_kaspersky) July 2, 2019

For those who are interested, there’s more info about the work we do with law enforcement agencies around the world.

After that I had half a day of express tourism! “That’s tourism for you, swift and merciless!” (I’m quoting myself there, by the way.) But more on that in the next post.