France’s Gendarmerie Nationale Partners With GCA

The Global Cyber Alliance (GCA) and the Gendarmerie nationale have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to collaborate together on cyber awareness and hygiene activities. This MoU is significant in furthering GCA’s presence in France.

“Prevention is an essential aspect of the Gendarmerie’s strategy against cybercrime, and over the past few years as more and more small and medium businesses, independent workers and local authorities are falling prey to organised cybercriminals,” said Éric Freyssinet, Colonel, Chef du Pôle national de lutte contre les cybermenaces (Colonel, Head of the National focal point for the fight against cyberthreats), Gendarmerie nationale. “We strongly believe in public-private partnerships and working across borders is essential to keep pace with these exponentially developing threats. The Global Cyber Alliance offers a unique opportunity to develop shared solutions to address and better protect that audience, and we have already started working alongside the great teams and partners of the GCA.”

The organizations have agreed to work together on areas of mutual interest including:

Increasing awareness of and training on GCA tools that can be used to augment the resilience of police departments and support the creation of a cyber resilience roadmap.
Supporting the Gendarmerie’s mission to provide local assistance to victims of cybercrime. GCA will work with the Gendarmerie to engage with the community on cybersecurity issues.
Sharing best practices between GCA and its law enforcement partners regarding awareness-raising activities.
Conducting awareness activities (such as webinars) for sectors identified as the most vulnerable to business email compromise (BEC).

“We are grateful and privileged to know and work with Col Éric Freyssinet and the Gendarmerie,” said Terry Wilson, GCA’s Global Partnership Officer. “The partnership with the Gendarmerie will develop a mutual framework for cooperation, concentrating on raising awareness, cyber hygiene, and prevention activities that are mutually reinforcing of both of our organisation’s core missions. We are planning a series of regional events to raise cybersecurity and prevention awareness across France in 2021 with the Gendarmerie.”

At the beginning of 2020 GCA launched the French language version of the GCA Cybersecurity Toolkit for Small Business and announced a partnership with Cybermalveillance.gouv.fr. The initial focus on the work between GCA and the French Gendarmerie will focus on a series of education events for small businesses, to highlight the need for cybersecurity and the resources available to them, such as GCA’s free toolkit.

The Gendarmerie nationale is part of the Ministry of the Interior and one of France’s oldest institutions, dating back to the early 18^th century. One of two national police agencies, the Gendarmerie is in charge of all activities related to the prevention and investigation of crime, including all forms of cybercrime and is responsible for 51% of the population covering 95% of the French territory, outside of large cities. The gendarmerie has developed a CyberGend network of more than 5,000 specialized investigators and local correspondents to deal with cybercrime and cyber-related crime and developed over the past thirty years specific capacities to address the advanced access to digital evidence, and the investigation of simple to sophisticated forms of cybercrime, with the ambition to remain at the forefront of European cybercrime fighting.

About GCA

The Global Cyber Alliance (GCA) is an international, cross-sector effort dedicated to reducing cyber risk and improving our connected world. We achieve our mission by uniting global communities, implementing concrete solutions, and measuring the effect. GCA, a 501(c)(3) in the US and a nonprofit in the UK and Belgium, was founded in September 2015 by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, the City of London Police, and the Center for Internet Security. Learn more at globalcyberalliance.org.

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