What More Than 10 Years Working with INTERPOL Taught Me About Cybersecurity
When people think of INTERPOL, their minds often go to high-stakes arrests, global manhunts, or dramatic movie plots. But behind the headlines lies something far more powerful: cooperation. INTERPOL is the world’s largest international police organization, linking 195 countries in a shared mission — not just to catch criminals, but to build trust, share intelligence, and strengthen global resilience.
As a cybersecurity professional at Trend Micro, I’ve had the honor of working closely with INTERPOL for more than a decade. And I can confidently say: this collaboration completely transformed the way I understand cybersecurity. Because cybersecurity, like crime-fighting, is no longer just a technical challenge — it’s a question of alignment, trust, coordination, and outsmarting adversaries who are already working together.
I still remember the first time I delivered a training session for INTERPOL in Washington, D.C., back in September 2014. It was a foundational moment — not just for me, but for the first group of cyber officers being trained to build INTERPOL’s digital crime capabilities. These were law enforcement professionals transitioning into the cyber domain for the first time, and our mission was clear: equip them to understand and hunt threats in a world without physical borders.
I was teaching techniques for reverse-engineering advanced malware, tracking global command-and-control (C2) infrastructure, and mapping botnet operations at scale. We went deep into analyzing packed binaries, multi-stage droppers, and custom obfuscation layers — not just to detect the threats, but to understand who built them, how they operated, and where they were controlled from.
That moment marked the beginning of something bigger — a shared journey between law enforcement and the cybersecurity community to confront digital crime as a global, coordinated threat. It was no longer about malware detection or firewall rules. It was about uncovering the adversary’s playbook, sharing intelligence in real time, and building a foundation of mutual trust between the private sector and global law enforcement.
The Criminal World is a Network. The Police World is a Hierarchy. That’s the First Problem.
Criminals operate like a decentralized startup: fast, flexible, and ruthlessly focused on outcomes. They form fluid alliances, share resources on encrypted forums, and use plug-and-play services like “Ransomware-as-a-Service” or AI-generated phishing kits. A cybercriminal gang in Eastern Europe might rely on infrastructure in South America, launder money through Asia, and target victims in North America — all while using freelance developers in a different time zone entirely.
By contrast, law enforcement often works like a traditional enterprise: siloed departments, jurisdictional constraints, and linear processes. Even within the same country, sharing intelligence can be a bureaucratic labyrinth.
That’s why INTERPOL matters — and why our cooperation with them as a private-sector partner matters even more. INTERPOL acts as the digital glue between national law enforcement agencies. They break down silos. They create trust bridges. They enable real-time data exchange between agencies that otherwise wouldn’t even speak the same digital language.
Crime Has Always Moved — Now It Moves Through Cyberspace
One of the most important lessons I’ve learned from working with INTERPOL is that cybercrime is not a new type of crime — it’s a new medium for the same criminal behaviors that have existed for centuries.
Throughout history, criminals have always followed opportunity and exploited systems:
In ancient times, it was roads, caravans, and trade routes.
Then it moved to banks, telegraphs, and wire fraud.
Today, it’s data centers, stolen credentials, cloud misconfigurations — and increasingly, cryptocurrencies.
Where there is value, crime will follow. And where systems evolve faster than regulation, exploitation thrives.
INTERPOL has continuously adapted to shifting threats — from smuggling and terrorism to organized crime and online exploitation. But today, cyber and digital activity are at the center of almost every investigation. From ransomware to dark web marketplaces, from human trafficking to financial scams — the digital layer is now inseparable from criminal operations.
And one of the most significant enablers of this evolution has been cryptocurrency.
With the rise of anonymous, fast, and globally accessible digital payment systems, cybercriminals now have the means to monetize their attacks and move money without touching the traditional banking system.
Ransomware groups demand Bitcoin or Monero to avoid traceability.
Money laundering networks use crypto mixers and DeFi protocols to obscure funds.
Cybercrime-as-a-service markets rely on crypto for selling credentials, malware kits, and access.
This financial layer has made cybercrime borderless, resilient, and highly profitable — and it makes the need for public–private cooperation more urgent than ever.
Because here’s the reality:
Cyberspace has no borders. There are no customs, no jurisdictions, no natural barriers. A single attacker can operate across ten countries in ten minutes — with infrastructure in one, victims in another, and funds flowing through five more via crypto.
Law enforcement can’t see it all. But the private sector can.
At Trend Micro, we operate in nearly every region on Earth, monitor millions of endpoints and cloud environments, and track attacker infrastructure — including cryptocurrency wallet activity, blockchain abuse patterns, and threat actor monetization models.
This global visibility gives us insight into criminal supply chains, financial behavior, and campaign infrastructure that would otherwise be hidden.
That’s why our role as a private sector partner is critical.
We bring:
Real-time data and telemetry
Global visibility across infrastructure and industries
Threat research, malware reversal, and blockchain forensics
Speed, agility, and innovation at scale
INTERPOL brings:
Legal authority and cross-border coordination
Operational capability to investigate and arrest
Trust networks across 195 countries
And when both sides work together — with aligned goals and shared intelligence — we can do what neither side can do alone: Disrupt global cybercriminal operations — from infrastructure to identity to income.
Why Criminals Succeed: The Ruthless Simplicity of Purpose
One of the most powerful lessons I’ve learned from our work with INTERPOL is this: cybercriminals succeed because they focus on outcomes — not rules, not politics, not constraints. They have a singular objective — profit — and they’ll exploit any weakness, technical or human, to achieve it.
They use:
Social engineering to break people.
Unpatched vulnerabilities to silently walk through doors we forgot to lock.
Malware to break machines.
Misconfigurations to bypass controls that were never tested under pressure.
Persistence mechanisms to remain hidden — like digital squatters who refuse to leave.
Lateral movement to spread quietly across networks, turning one compromised system into full domain control.
Security evasion tactics to disable or blind the very tools meant to detect them.
Cryptocurrencies to hide money.
AI to scale attacks with machine efficiency.
Fake identities to cross borders undetected.
Criminals don’t ask, “Is this compliant?” or “Is this ethical?” They ask, “Does it work?” That brutal efficiency gives them speed. It gives them scale. And unless defenders learn to think more asymmetrically, we’ll always be one step behind.
That’s why INTERPOL’s perspective is so refreshing — and so vital. They don’t just analyze threats. They profile mindsets. They understand how criminals think, plan, and evolve. Their investigations often start with one victim — and then uncover entire networks of collaboration, stretching across continents.
INTERPOL taught me that if we want to be effective defenders, we can’t just build walls. We must build stories — of how attacks unfold, how motivations form, and how ecosystems enable threat actors to thrive.
This mindset shift — from tool-centric to adversary-centric — changed how I lead, how I prioritize risk, and how I design strategy. In a world of digital crime, we don’t just need better products. We need better mental models.
What Changed for Me: From “Blocking Threats” to “Disrupting Criminal Ecosystems”
When I first entered the cybersecurity field, I believed success meant stopping attacks — detecting malware, patching vulnerabilities, closing ports. My mindset was purely tactical: find the threat, block the threat, move on.
But a decade of collaboration with INTERPOL reshaped that thinking entirely.
I began to see cybercrime not as a series of isolated incidents, but as a complex, interconnected ecosystem — complete with supply chains, outsourced development, monetization strategies, and shared infrastructure. These are not lone actors. These are criminal economies operating across borders, time zones, and platforms.
And if attackers operate like a networked enterprise, then our defense must move beyond isolated tools — toward ecosystem-level disruption.
Here’s how I now frame the layers of modern defense:
Exposure management is like inspecting your home for weaknesses before anyone breaks in — faulty locks, blind spots, open garage doors.
Protection technologies (EPP, NGFW, CNAPP, etc.) are like locking the doors and windows of your digital house.
Detection and threat intelligence are your security cameras — they help you see what’s happening and who’s approaching.
Response is your emergency services — neutralizing the threat once the alarm is triggered.
Cooperation with law enforcement is the neighborhood watch on a global scale — capable of pursuing criminals beyond your property and dismantling the networks behind the attacks. And when combined with cooperation across companies in your own sector, it becomes a force multiplier: sharing threat intelligence, aligning defenses, and disrupting adversaries faster than they can adapt. Cybercriminals collaborate. So must we — across borders, across roles, and even across competitors.
With INTERPOL, we’ve helped map threat actor infrastructure, disrupt money laundering networks, train law enforcement agencies in digital forensics, and support global takedown operations. These efforts go far beyond patching vulnerabilities — they’re about shaping the threat landscape itself.
This shift — from defending the perimeter to disrupting the ecosystem — has fundamentally changed how I define success in cybersecurity. It’s no longer about reacting to what’s already inside. It’s about reducing attacker advantage at every layer — and that starts with cooperation, intelligence, and strategic disruption.
The Law Enforcement Mindset: Precision Over Speed, Disruption Over Noise
One of the most unexpected lessons I’ve learned from working with INTERPOL is that speed is not always the most important currency in cybersecurity. In our world, we often equate fast alerts with value, and rapid response with success. But law enforcement taught me that depth, precision, and legal viability are what truly drive meaningful impact.
In policing — especially at a global level — every move must be documented, defensible, and internationally coordinated. It’s not enough to detect an intrusion or block a malicious IP. They focus on questions that go much deeper:
Can we attribute this attack to a real human being — not just a username or IP address?
Can we build a case that stands up in court, across jurisdictions, with evidence that can’t be challenged?
Can we coordinate across countries to arrest, extradite, and prosecute — and ensure the entire operation is airtight?
This is not a sprint. It’s a relay race, with baton hand-offs between agencies, across legal systems, time zones, and languages. Every step must be synchronized. Every piece of intelligence must be admissible. And every action must serve a larger purpose: disruption of the criminal ecosystem.
Rethinking Success: Stopping an Attack Is Not the Finish Line
For many years — and for many cybersecurity teams — “success” has been defined by a single event: we stopped the attack. An alert triggered. A file was quarantined. A device was isolated. The ticket was closed. Green lights all around.
But after a decade of working alongside INTERPOL, I’ve come to understand just how misleading and incomplete that definition can be.
Stopping an attack is important — but it’s also reactive, tactical, and temporary. It’s like catching one thief while the rest of the gang quietly continues operating from the shadows. If we stop the attack but fail to:
Understand the motive
Trace the infrastructure
Disrupt the business model
Prevent the next iteration
…then we haven’t solved the problem. We’ve just hit pause.
Because cybercriminals are nothing if not persistent. If one technique fails, they don’t stop — they pivot.
If their phishing email fails, they’ll try a voice call.
If a payload is blocked, they repackage it.
If access is lost, they find another vector.
If the malware gets flagged, they’ll recompile it.
If the front door is locked, they’ll find a misconfigured backdoor.
If they’re discovered, they’ll disappear — and try again tomorrow.
They iterate, adapt, and try again.
This relentless persistence is built into their operating model — and if our response ends with containment, we’re simply playing whack-a-mole while the ecosystem behind the threat continues to grow. Persistence is part of their playbook. And unless our strategy accounts for that — not just blocking the “what” but understanding the “who,” “how,” and “why” — we’re merely delaying the inevitable.
INTERPOL helped me see that real success in cybersecurity is not about stopping incidents — it’s about creating consequences:
Attribution that leads to accountability
Intelligence that feeds future defenses
Disruption of criminal operations and infrastructure
Collaboration that prevents the next victim
In other words: Success is not just stopping an attack. It’s stopping the attacker’s ability to operate.
This mindset shift — from short-term control to long-term consequence — has completely changed how I lead, how I design strategy, and how we measure impact at Trend Micro. We’re not just in the business of detection and response. We’re in the business of disruption and deterrence.
From Reactive to Proactive: Why This Kind of Cooperation Is No Longer Optional
At Trend Micro, we’ve come to understand that cybersecurity can’t be solved by technology alone. Tools matter — but mindset, coordination, and shared context matter more. That’s why our mission has evolved: we’re not just building products — we’re building bridges.
And not just between the private and public sectors — but also within organizations themselves.
One of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned from working with INTERPOL is that cooperation isn’t just an external necessity — it’s an internal one, too.
Just like different police agencies must align across borders, different teams inside enterprises and governments must align across silos. But too often, they don’t.
The SOC drowns in alerts.
The IT team focuses on availability and uptime.
The CISO speaks in technical risk.
The board speaks in financial exposure.
And legal, compliance, and operations all have their own language and priorities.
This fragmentation creates gaps in visibility, misaligned responses, and delayed decisions — especially when time and clarity are critical.
From INTERPOL, I learned the importance of building a common operating picture. In law enforcement, that means connecting analysts, investigators, legal advisors, and field officers into one coordinated response. In cybersecurity, it means connecting IT, security, risk, and business leadership around a shared, measurable understanding of cyber risk.
That’s why we champion cyber risk as a common language — one that translates alerts into impact, risk into business terms, and decisions into action. It’s not just a metric — it’s a bridge between stakeholders.
We see ourselves as cybersecurity diplomats, helping align defenders across departments, sectors, and borders. That’s why we support operations like Serengeti in Africa, help INTERPOL run cybercrime training across Asia and Latin America, and contribute intelligence to global investigations.
Because the next cyberattack isn’t just a question of when. It’s a question of who’s already working together — and who isn’t.
In today’s world, cooperation is not a luxury — it’s a force multiplier. Cybercriminals operate as agile, decentralized networks. If we defend in silos — technical, organizational, or geopolitical — we fall behind.
But when we cooperate across silos, we gain:
From reactive firefighting to proactive disruption
From fragmented signals to shared context
From tactical fixes to strategic, risk-informed decisions
That’s what our collaboration with INTERPOL revealed: cyber defense isn’t just about technology — it’s about alignment. And in a world of adaptive adversaries, fragmentation may be the biggest vulnerability of all.
Cybersecurity Isn’t Just a Technical Discipline — It’s a Strategic Responsibility
After more than a decade of collaboration with INTERPOL, my perspective on cybersecurity has completely transformed. I used to believe that stopping an attack was a victory. Today, I know that real success is about understanding the ecosystem behind the attack — and disrupting it. I used to think of cyber threats as isolated incidents. Now, I see them as symptoms of a much deeper criminal economy, one that thrives on our fragmentation, our blind spots, and our lack of coordination. And I used to view cooperation as something that happens between organizations. But now I realize it must start within them — by aligning IT, security, risk, legal, and leadership around a common language of cyber risk, so we can respond with unity, clarity, and purpose.
Because the adversary is already aligned. They move fast. They specialize. They collaborate.And they don’t stop after one failed attempt.
So we can’t afford to operate in silos. We need to cooperate across borders, and just as importantly, across departments. We need to stop thinking in terms of alerts — and start thinking in terms of consequence.
That’s the real lesson I’ve learned from a decade of working with INTERPOL:
Cybersecurity isn’t just about defending infrastructure. It’s about protecting trust. It’s about enabling better decisions. It’s about turning information into action — and action into disruption.
The future of cybersecurity will be shaped by those who can connect the dots, break down the walls, and work together to outthink those who seek to outmaneuver us.