Barclays takes second dip into Europol security pool

The European Cybercrime Centre’s (EC3) head of operations, Paul Gillen, is stepping down from his post to accept a similar position at Barclays bank.

Gillen told SCMagazineUK.com that he will be vacating his position in June to become the bank’s cyber operations managing director. He will have a familiar face at his new job, as Barclays had also recently taken on Troels Oerting – Gillen’s ex-boss – as group chief information security officer.

Gillen said:

“Troels and I were part of the top management team at EC3. He was head of EC3 and I was head of cyber operations and cyber intelligence.

“Troels went to Barclays in January 2015 and he expressed an interest in renewing our partnership at Barclays.”

It has yet to be determined who will take up Gillen’s former post at Europol. EC3 hadn’t replied to SC at the time of writing, and is still seeking to find the right individual to fill Oerting’s boots. Wil Van Gemert, Europol’s deputy director of operations, is holding the fort as the EC3 acting director.

Security professionals are such a hot commodity in the current climate that these recent moves by Barclays come as no surprise. Financial organisations, especially, are having to tighten security, but any organisation that holds sensitive data is prone to a breach. IT security recruitment is more important now than it ever was, and UK SMEs would be wise to follow in the footsteps of Barclays and ensure they have trained security pros in house.