EU Police To Receive Corporate Hacker Training

Cyber criminals beware! European police officers will soon receive corporate-sponsored university training in order to help fight cyber crime more effectively. Support for the new project will be provided by several leading IT companies.

Online security magnate McAfee estimates that businesses lose over a billion dollars each year as a result of online crime. Just recently Ebay suffered a security breach where attackers were able to exploit a browser vulnerability. Since international police are not always trained to tackle the crimes directly, companies like Microsoft, Ebay, and AOL typically have their own internal investigation teams to handle online crimes. (Source: networkworld.com)

In an effort to change that, EU police will hit the books next year thanks to a new initiative by the Council of Europe's conference on cyber crime held in Strasbourg. The program is being implemented in order to increase the effectiveness and unity of online responses to crime in the international community.

Hopefully, all of that is about to change as the pilot courses get underway later in the year. IT giants such as Microsoft, Ebay, AOL, and Symantec will provide support for the program, offering insight and funds. The European Commission is expected to contribute to the program as well, since it has specifically earmarked funding for virtual crime prevention.

The University of Dublin and the Universite de Troyes (in Ireland and France respectively) will be the first schools to train officers in the art of preserving IT crime scenes, and investigating crimes perpetrated online. (Source: ft.com)

Specialized Cyber-Crime Fighting Force

Tim Cranton, Microsoft's associate general counsel of Internet safety programs, thinks that the new training is an excellent idea. "At the moment if someone goes to the local police station in their town and says they are a victim of identity fraud on the Internet, the police officer doesn't even know what the next step should be or what questions to ask," he told reporters. Cranton hopes that there will be an additional 100,000 police officers receiving cyber crime training each year. (Source: ft.com)

With any luck, a specialized cyber-crime fighting police will make the net a safer place for users everywhere, since hackers tend to operate without borders. The combination of intense training and corporate support should produce effective results, especially in conjunction with similar initiatives in the US.