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2013

DIRECTIVE 2013/40/EU of the European Parliament and of the The Council of 12. August 2013, on attacks against information systems and replacing Council Framework Decision 2005/222/JHA, was adopted, and entered into force on the twentieth day following that of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.

The First Europol-INTERPOL Cybercrime Conference was held on September 24-25, 2013.

The European Commission decided to establish the EC3 at Europol in The Hague, and it was official opened on January 1. The Centre is intended to be the focal point  in the EU`s fight against cybercrime. It will support the Member States in building operational and analytical capacity for investigations, and cooperation with international partners.

2012

A draft Council of European Union Conclusion on the establishment of a European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) was presented. on June 4, 2012. The Council affirmed its support, and followed up on September 26, 2012, with a paper on Tackling digital crime through the establishment of a European Cybercrime Centre - The way forward.

2011

The next EU-U.S. Summit was held at the White House, Washington DC, USA, on November 28. A joint statement from the leaders of the European Union and the United States, included in Article 22 as follows:

«We welcome the progress made by the EU-U.S. Working Group on Cybersecurity and Cybercrime, notably the sucessful Cyber Atlantic 2011 exercise. We endorse its ambitious goals for 2012, including combating online sexual abuse of children; enhancing the security of domain names and Internet addresses; promotion of international ratification, including by all EU Member States, of the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime ideally by years end; establishing appropriate information exchange mechanisms to jointly engage with the private sector; and confronting the unfair market access barriers that European and U.S. technology companies face abroad.»

The Cyber Atlantic exercise was organized in Brussels on November 3 as a test of trans Atlantic responses to cyber incidents, including an attack on supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems in EU power generation equipment. One of the leadres made a statement as follows:

«Recent high profile cyber attacks show that global threats need global action. Today´s exercise provides valuable lessons for specialists on both sides of the Atlantic.»

A proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on Attacks against Information Systems, replacing Council Framework Decision 2005/222JHA, was presented on May 30. Some amendments were made to the presentation for the EU Commisssion in 2010.

2010

An EU-U.S. Summit was held on November 20 in Lisbon, Portugal. A joint statement from the leaders of the European Union and the United States, included the establiment of an EU-U.S. Working Group on Cybersecurity and Cybercrime.

The Commission of the European Union presented on September 30, a Proposal for a Directive on attacks against information systems, repealing Framework Decision 2005/222/JHA.

The Commission is also planning for a European training platform on cybercrimeinvestigation.

The Commission is also assisting Europol and the Member States to implement European alert platform for Internet-related offences that will enable pooling reports of cybercrimes committed in the different Member States.

The Council of the European Union has adopted coclusions concerning an Action Plan to implement the concerted strategy to combat cybercrime.

2009

The Commission of the European Union issued a Communication on Critical Information Infrastructure Protection (CIIP) entitled « Protecting Europe from large scale cyber-attacks and disruptions: enhancing preparedness, security and resilience.»

2002-2008

In the European Union, the Commission of the European Communities presented on April 19, 2002 a proposal for a Council Framework Decision on attacks against information systems. The proposal was adopted by the Council in 2005 and includes Article 2: Illegal access to Information Systems, Article 3: Illegal System Interference and Article 4: Illegal Data Interference:

Article 2
Illegal access to Information systems
1. Each Member State shall take the necessary measures to ensure that the intentional access without right to the whole or any part of an information system is punishable as a criminal offence, at least for cases which are not minor.
2. Each Member State may decide that the conduct referred to in paragraph 1 is incriminated only where the offence is committed by infringing a security measure.

Article 3
Illegal system interference
Each Member State shall take the necessary measures to ensure that the intentional serious hindering or interruption of the functioning of an information system by inputting, transmitting, damaging, deleting, deteriorating, altering, suppressing or rendering inaccessible computer data is punishable as a criminal offence when committed without right, at least for cases which are not minor.

Article 4
Illegal data interference
Each Member State shall take the necessary measures to ensure that the intentional deletion, damaging, deterioration, alteration, suppression or rendering inaccessible of computer data on an information system is punishable as a criminal offence when committed without right, at least for cases which are not minor.

In May 2007, the EU Commission considered an initiative regarding European legislation on identity theft, called: "Towards a general policy on the fight against cyber crime"

The Commission organized an European Union Expert Meeting on Cybercrime in November 2007. The meeting represented the next step for the European Union in implementing the general policy outlined by the Commission. A statement was made as follows:

"The increasing prevalence of cybercrime across Europe, spanning large scale attacks in Estonia, identity theft in Spain, illegal content and high-profile online child abuse incidents in Austria, Germany, Italy and the UK, highlights the need for concerted action. Indeed successful operations such as "Operation Koala" and the global hunt for "Vico" pedophile depends on regional and international cooperation. The conclusions of today´s meeting represent an important step by the EU to establish the cooperative links upon which success is build."

A Framework Decision amending the Framework Decision 2002/475 JHA on combating Terrorism has been prepared in 2008 in EU. It will include three new crimes in the EU legislation: public provocation to commit terrorist offences, recruitment for terrorism, and training for terrorism.

The Council of Ministers of the European Union adopted in November 2008 the Councils strategy to reinforce the fight against cyber crime. The new strategy recommends:

“reinforcing partnership between the police and the private sector by better knowledge-sharing on investigation methods and trends in cyber crime. It also encourages both parties to respond quickly to information requests, resort to remote searches, cyber patrols for online tracking of criminals and joint investigations across borders. The strategy also calls for the setting up an alert platform in the short term, where reports on crime committed on the Internet, such as posting of illegal content, in EU would be pooled for cross-checking by Europol.”

Europol was requested to implement the platform.