CYCLOPES – A project to create an innovation-driven network of law enforcement agencies combating cybercrime

Laurea is part of the CYCLOPES project, launched in May 2021, which aims to create a European network of law enforcement agencies, LEAs, combating cybercrime. The five-year project, funded by the EU funding programme Horizon 2020, is coordinated by the Polish Platform for Homeland Security, and 20 partners from 15 European countries are involved in the project.  

The digital transformation of our economies, societies and private lives is progressing fast and will continue to impact all aspects of life. Unsurprisingly, these developments have also had a fundamental impact on serious and organized crime in the EU. 

CYCLOPES (Cybercrime Law Enforcement Practitioners Network) works to encounter the threats of online crime, which are growing in parallel to the use the Internet in societies throughout the world. The total financial impact caused by cybercrime is difficult to establish, but it can be considered to be more than 500 billion euros per year. Indirect costs of cybercrime, such as loss of business, trust, and reputation, are naturally significant. Also, there are emotional and human impacts that are impossible to measure. Nevertheless, the substantial scale and prevalence of the various forms of cyber-related crime show that we need to do more to protect ourselves from criminal activities. 

According to the EU SOCTA 2021 report, cyber-dependent crime is any criminal activity that can only be committed using computers, computer networks or other forms of information communication technology (ICT). New opportunities for cyberattacks targeting citizens, businesses and critical infrastructure are continuously created. Criminal activities related to online child sexual abuse have continuously increased over recent years. The widespread abuse of encryption tools, including end-to-end encrypted apps, has lowered the risk of detection by offenders. Offenders increasingly rely on anonymisation services such as virtual private networks (VPNs) or proxy servers. 

The CYCLOPES project’s main goals are to define the capability gaps and requirements of practitioners fighting cybercrime, and to monitor the development of new technologies, research activities and innovations applied to combatting cybercrime. It also aims to indicate priorities regarding domains requiring standardisation and innovation uptake, and cooperate with other networks of practitioners and relevant stakeholders fighting cybercrime. Although the project brings together practitioners in a ‘network’ of actions – the goal is to integrate with established European networks to utilise existing communication channels and structures. This is critical as another primary objective is not to duplicate the efforts of other projects and initiatives. In contrast, the CYCLOPES project hopes to decrease redundancy and provide other initiatives such as ENLETS, Europol’s Innovation Lab, EACTDA, ECTEG and CEPOL with results that will further benefit their actions. 

Finally, CYCLOPES will focus on the ongoing dialogue with the industry including SMEs and academia, who are delivering products and conducting research on solutions that help fight cybercrime, in addition to sharing best practices. 

The main engine of the project consists of practitioners’ workshops where gaps and requirements, as well as current capacity of authorities combating cybercrime, will be identified. 

Laurea’s area of responsibility includes project communications and network building as well as research activities related to cybercrime prevention. Furthermore, Laurea is responsible for the ethical competence of the project. 

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