Central cybercrime resource for EU member states.
This Friday will see the doors of the new European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) officially open in The Hague. The EC3 – which will be run by cross-national law enforcement agency Europol – aims to bring resources, expertise and information together from across the EU to a single central location.
The borderless nature of cybercrime – wherein both victims and suspects, and even component parts of an attack (e.g. servers) often reside in different countries – makes investigation very difficult for national police forces. The EC3 will support cybercrime investigations within EU states, joint investigations involving more than one EU state, and will also facilitate law enforcement cooperation with non-EU partners.
The EC3 also aims to act as a central information point – gathering and processing information on cybercrime, providing trend analyses, forecasts and early warnings. A ‘Cybercrime Helpdesk’ will be made available for the law enforcement bodies of EU states, and the centre will also dedicate resources to the development of cybercrime training and to raising awareness of cybercrime issues.
The focus of the EC3 will be on organized online crime targeting online banking and other online financial activities, online child abuse, and online crimes that affect critical infrastructure and information systems in the EU.
EU Commissioner for Home Affairs Cecilia Malmström, who said that the centre will ‘give a strong boost to the EU’s capacity to fight cybercrime’, will officially open the centre on 11th January.
Posted on 09 January 2013 by
Helen Martin
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