U.S. Department of the Treasury Signs Cybersecurity MoU with Finland

The U.S. Department of the Treasury has recently announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on cybersecurity cooperation with Finland. 

The MoU will facilitate exchange of information on cybersecurity between the Finnish Ministry of Finance and the Treasury Department.

“Effective information sharing is critical to building operational resilience. This partnership will help the Treasury protect the financial sector from emerging threats while reinforcing our ability to coordinate incident response with our allies abroad,” says Todd Conklin, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Cybersecurity and Critical Infrastructure Protection.

The MoU sets forth protocols for exchanging information regarding cybersecurity threats, incidents, and cyber threat actors, alongside best practices. It fosters cooperation and is governed by principles of voluntariness, timeliness, anonymity, and confidentiality. 

Moreover, it promotes visits, discussions, and exercises among parties, facilitating knowledge exchange and training opportunities. Earlier this year, the Treasury revealed that it recovered over US$ 375 million so far with the help of an AI-powered fraud detection system.

Check fraud has increased nationwide by 385% since the pandemic, the department said.  

To counter this, the Treasury's Office of Payment Integrity (OPI), under the Bureau of the Fiscal Service (Fiscal Service), has deployed an upgraded AI-powered process to combat the rise in fraud. 

This initiative aims to swiftly identify and mitigate check fraud in near real-time, enhancing the efficiency of recovering potentially fraudulent payments from financial institutions.