The Europol efforts to strengthen cooperation with private security companies have taken another step, as the European Cybercrime Center (EC3) of the law enforcement organization announced that it signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Mnemonic, one of the biggest firms providing IT information security services in the Nordic Region.

The agreement was signed last month, but Europol announced it on Thursday, saying that the digital challenges of today require “a collective approach in which law enforcement and private industry are compelled to work closely together.”

One purpose of the memorandum is sharing of expertise, statistics and strategies about the cyber threats menacing the residents of the region.

However, apart from this, the cooperation may lead to extended actions, such as exchanging intelligence on different cyber threats, malware analysis or examination of passive DNS data.

The head of the European Cybercrime Center said that the agreement was not just a formality, but a bond between the two entities that should conduct towards prosecuting and disrupting online crime.

On the same note, Jorn Tore Hov, Vice President of Mnemonic, said that joining other experts from the public and private sector, as well as sharing relevant information, meant “an important leap forward in combating cybercrime.”

Mnemonic is not the first private company to get involved with Europol. At the beginning of October, the law enforcement organization signed a similar MoU with security vendor Kaspersky.