Crime, EU – Baltic States, Internet, Legislation, Technology

The Commission announced its intention to establish a European Cybercrime Centre (EC-3) in the 'EU Internal Security Strategy in Action' (IP/10/1535 and MEMO/10/598), adopted on 22 November 2010 by the Commission.

The setting up of a (EC3) European Cybercrime Centre (IP/12/317 and MEMO/12/221) is part of a series of measures that seek to protect citizens from online crimes. It complements legislative proposals such as the Directive on attacks against information systems (IP/10/1239 and MEMO/10/463) and the Directive on combating the sexual exploitation of children online and child pornography adopted in 2011 (IP/11/1255).

The official opening Ceremony of the EC-3 will take place on the 11 January at the headquarters of Europol in The Hague, the Netherlands.

Commission’s opinion

"The Cybercrime Centre will give a strong boost to the EU's capacity to fight cybercrime and defend an internet that is free, open and secure. Cybercriminals are smart and quick in using new technologies for criminal purposes; the EC3 will help us become even smarter and quicker to help prevent and fight their crimes", said Commissioner C. Malmström.

"In combating cybercrime, with its borderless nature and huge ability for the criminals to hide, we need a flexible and adequate response. The European Cybercrime Centre is designed to deliver this expertise as a fusion centre, as a centre for operational investigative and forensic support, but also through its ability to mobilise all relevant resources in EU Member States to mitigate and reduce the threat from cybercriminals wherever they operate from", said Troels Oerting, Head of the European Cybercrime Centre.

Reference: European Commission, Press release, IP/13, Brussels, 9 January 2013.

Investigations into online fraud, child abuse online and other cybercrimes regularly involve hundreds of victims at a time, and suspects in many different parts of the world. Operations of this magnitude cannot be successfully concluded by national police forces alone.

The opening of the European Cybercrime Centre (EC-3) marks a significant shift in how the EU has been addressing cybercrime so far. Above all, the approach of the EC-3 will be more forward-thinking and inclusive. It will pool expertise and information, support criminal investigations and promote EU-wide solutions.

The EC-3 will focus on illegal online activities carried out by organised crime groups, especially attacks targeting e-banking and other online financial activities, online child sexual exploitation and those crimes that affect the critical infrastructure and information systems in the EU.

The Centre will also facilitate research and development and ensure capacity building among law enforcement, judges and prosecutors and will produce threat assessments, including trend analyses, forecasts and early warnings. In order to dismantle more cybercrime networks and prosecute more suspects, the EC-3 will gather and process cybercrime related data and will provide a Cybercrime Help desk for EU countries' law enforcement units. It will offer operational support to EU countries (e.g. against intrusion, fraud, online child sexual abuse, etc.) and deliver high-level technical, analytical and forensic expertise in EU joint investigations.

According to a recent Eurobarometer, Europeans remain very concerned about cyber security. 89% of internet users avoid disclosing personal information online, and 12% have already experienced online fraud.

Around one million people worldwide fall victim to some form of cybercrime every day. Estimates indicate that victims lose around €290 billion each year worldwide as a result of cybercriminal activities (Globally, the damage is estimated at $388 billion, see Norton Cybercrime Report 2011, Symantec, 7 September 2011, accessed on 6 January 2012).

For further details, see the Europol website:

 https://www.europol.europa.eu/content/news/ec3-opening-european-cybercrime-centre-1933

= As well as MEMO/13/6;  

= Cecilia Malmström's website; Cybercrime: EU citizens concerned by security of personal information and online payments – IP/12/751;  

= DG Home Affairs website;

= DG Home Affairs on Twitter;

More on the European Cybercrime Centre

European Commission published a communication (Frequently asked questions: The European Cybercrime Center EC-3, Memo/13, Brussels, 9 January 2012). Below are extracts from the Communication.

= The Centre’s objective: The main task of the European Cybercrime Centre is to disrupt the operations of organised crime networks that commit a large share of the serious and organised cybercrimes. Offences include those generating large criminal profits, those causing serious harm to their victims or those affecting our vital infrastructure and IT systems.

The Centre will gather information from a variety of sources – not only law enforcement authorities – to support investigations conducted by Member States' authorities. This will allow the Centre to identify the most dangerous, pressing cybercrime threats and single out key cybercrime networks in the EU. The Centre will also provide an early warning system for national law enforcement on new vulnerabilities criminals have started to exploit or on how to handle new, technically challenging cases.

The Centre will further develop a common standard for cybercrime reporting so that serious cybercrime can be reported to national law enforcement authorities in a uniform way. Information from a citizen in one Member State reporting a compromise of his bank account could easily be linked to other citizens reporting similar incidents affecting the same bank in their respective countries. In such cases, the Centre will be able to immediately alert all other Member States' authorities.

The Centre will also respond to queries from cybercrime investigators, prosecutors and judges as well as the private sector on specific technical and forensic issues, and would bring together the various players in cybercrime training with the aim of increasing the overall offer of training possibilities and expanding such courses to the judiciary.

Finally, the Centre would assume the collective voice of European cybercrime investigators, providing a platform to develop common positions of Union law enforcement authorities on key issues, for example on Internet governance structures or in building trusted networks with the private sector and non-governmental organisations, and providing the natural interface for international initiatives to curb cybercrime, such as Interpol's work in this domain.

= Centre’s performance. Equipped with state-of-the-art technology and a strong team of highly-qualified and specialised personnel offering a wide spectrum of services - from helping Member States analyse complex digital forensic evidence to forecasting trends and scenarios, the European Cybercrime Centre will become the focal point in the fight against cybercrime in the Union.

For an overview of the Centre's functions, see infographics in:  http://tinyurl.com/ec3infographic.

= Centre’s financial support. Since the EC-3 will be launched within Europol its budget will form part of the general Europol budget (which amounted to around €84 million in 2012). Around 7 million euros will be available for the EC-3 operational activities within the Europol 2013 budget.

As for the staff, 30 full time positions are already operating within the EC-3 and in the course of 2013 Europol will make additional redistributions of tasks, so as to free around 10 additional posts, bringing the total EC-3 staff to around 40 people.

As for subsequent years, additional reinforcements will be necessary to meet the increased workload of the Centre. The Commission is at work to find ways to increase Europol's budget accordingly with the Agency's expanding mandate in the field of cybercrime.

= The extent of the cybercrime problems. According to a recent study (see IP/12/751), Internet users remain very concerned about cyber security. As many as 89% of them avoid disclosing personal information online and 74% agree that the risk of becoming a victim of cybercrime has increased in the past year.

In fact, about one million people worldwide fall victim to some form of cybercrime every day. Some estimate that victims lose around €290 billion each year worldwide as a result of cybercriminal activities. According to a McAfee study cybercrime profits amount to $750 billion a year, with 150.000 computer viruses in circulation every day and 148.000 computers compromised daily

= Centre’s operations. In the past months, Europol has also significantly increased its practical support to cybercrime investigations in the member states. In 2012 only, citing only one example, Operation Icarus, coordinated by Europol, identified 273 online child sexual abuse suspects and 113 of those suspects spread across 23 countries were arrested. This is the scale and complexity of operations the European Cybercrime Centre will focus on.

General reference: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-13-6_en.htm?locale=en