Brussels, 10/02/2014 (Agence Europe) - The EC3 Centre is enjoying increasing success, despite being submerged in requests for assistance. On Monday 10 February in Brussels, Troels Örting described the activities being carried out by the new European centre he heads which is responsible for tackling cybercrime. The EC3 Centre is based at the Europol offices in The Hague and has been operational since January 2013.
Together with European Commissioner for Home Affairs Cecilia Malmström, the director of the EC3 outlined the main achievements by the centre, as well as the major challenges facing it, which include the use of computer cloud services by cyber criminals and guaranteeing an open internet whilst tackling crime. In 2013, the main challenges facing the centre involved hacking and malware, child pornography and bank card fraud, said the director. In 2013, the centre helped coordinate 19 international operations.
Two major international investigations (Ransom and Ransom II) were concluded, related to so-called Police Ransomware - a type of malware that blocks the victim's computer, accusing the victim of having visited illegal websites containing child abuse material or other illegal activity. Criminals request the payment of a “fine” to unblock the victim's computer, making the Ransomware look as if it comes from a legitimate law enforcement agency. Cybercriminals convince the victim to pay the “fine” of around €100 through two types of payment gateways - virtual and anonymous. The operation brought in profits in excess of €1 million per year. At present, EC3 supports 9 large child sexual exploitation police operations within the European Union by providing expertise. EC3 is currently providing operational and analytical support to 16 investigations, regarding payment fraud. In 2013, it supported investigations resulting in three different international networks of credit card fraudsters being dismantled and many arrests being made. The crimes committed each involved compromising the payment credentials of 30,000 credit card holders.
Örting pointed out, however, that there were also a lot of less classic kinds of cybercrimes, such as those practised by cocaine traffickers at the port of Amsterdam. They seize control of the computers used to work out the location and contents of different port containers and manipulate the data to ensure that the container in question is seen as having already been inspected. Another recurrent phenomenon involves EC3 teams having to tackle the increasing rate of Russian-speaking cyber criminals. This is a particularly complex task for the centre based in The Hague because, as the centre's director explained, “a fluent knowledge of Russian is required” and these networks are operating outside the EU.
The EC3 was expected to have a workforce of around 40 by the end of 2013. Last year, its budget stood at €7 million. Örting indicated that the centre “received more requests than it could tackle”. The director said that he was “concerned” by the increasing inventiveness of cyber criminals and the fact that these kinds of crimes represented an enormous challenge because they are more difficult to detect and resolve than crimes that leave physical traces of evidence. The director warned that this kind of crime was likely to increase with digital development and high-speed internet connections. (SP/transl.fl)