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EU Hi-Tech Crime Agency Created

Posted by michael on from the move-over-scotland-yard dept.

Gori writes "The European Union is setting up an agency to co-ordinate work to combat the rising tide of cybercrime. The European Network and Information Security Agency will help educate the public about viruses, hacker attacks and other security problems. It will also act as a co-ordinator for Europe-wide investigations into virus outbreaks or electronic attacks. ENISA has a budget of 24.3m euros (17m), will start work in 2004 and will initially be based in Brussels."

7 of 88 comments (clear)

  1. No let-up for MS within the EU by Space+cowboy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Well, given that the EU are taking viruses seriously, perhaps MS will start to get some less-than-wonderful press over here.

    Perhaps the EU can hold seminars, teaching MS employees what's good and bad about virus protection. Hint: the 'execute' bit has a fair old say in the matter :-)

    Simon

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  2. What kind of "hackers" will they catch? by LeoDV · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Not to sound like ESR, but "hackers" is too widely used as a blanket statement for anyone who does things with computers that you don't understand. "Hackers" can be people who infiltrate networks, write/spread viruses, launch DDoS attacks, but also spammers, or even filesharers.

    So I'm wondering what kind of "hackers" this agency is going to go after, the people behind virus attacks, DDoS attacks, spammers, etc., or are they just going to nab a few filesharing teenagers to make the headlines?

  3. Yeah, tell me about it... by heironymouscoward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    My Brussels company is actually involved in a cybercrime case (one of our ex-employees woke up one day and decided he wanted to trash our CVS).

    The EU has had a cybercrime convention that was passed into law in Belgium in 2000, three years ago. The very first case is currently appearing in court. Until today, cybercrimes have mostly been classified under random sections of the criminal act such as "theft of electricity", "abuse of confidential information", and so on.

    Belgium actually has a specialized cybercrime cell in the prosecutor's office. But it's still a very new area and could do with some better coverage. Few people know, for instance, that hacking one's own company is actually considered much more serious than hacking from "the outside", in the case of our departed hacker, worth between 18 months and 3 years in prison.

    No-one really knows what counts as "evidence" either, and since laws in most European countries are not based on court cases but on statutory definitions, we don't even know if emails and expert's reports count as evidence.

    I think cybercrime will be very important in the years ahead, as more and more business-critical information is stored in databases that can be accessed from the other side of the world if one knows the correct passwords.

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  4. This smells fishy ! by Katchina'404 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This smells fishy already... Apparently the parliament rapporteur is none else than the infamous Arlene McArthy (of Europen Softwre Patents fame). And she's already making propositions to have the Agency support TCPA / "Secure Computing" stuff...

    Check it here...

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  5. Is this agency going after real crime? by spidergoat2 · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Or is this going to be the EU version of the Software Business Alliance, whose idea of crime is copying software?

  6. Brussels, Brussels by claes · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Almost every EU agency seems to end up in one of a few places: Brussels, Strasbourg, Frankfurt. In Sweden, we have, as far as I know not a single EU agency. Not surprising that EU is so unpopular here when everything is centralised like this. I have been a supporter of EU , and still am, but if it continues like this, I wonder what is the point. Decentralise!!!

  7. Enisa is a trap by Elektroschock · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Initators of ENISA are software patent lover Arlene McCarthy (UK labour) and the doubtful European Internet Foundation (see disinfopedia).

    Association Electronic Libre (Belgium) has monitored the ENISA situation .

    It is probably initiated by Business Software Alliance. Many observers regard the EIF as a parliaments prostitution camp. This may be a strong comment. However, I guess ENISA will promote Digital Rights Magemenent, Palladium and so on. It will not compare to well respected security institutions like German BSI.

    I know the key persons and we knwo the aganda.