Europol suggests citizens join fight against cyber crime

Internet users could potentially join in as the EU looks to utilise crowd sourcing

Rob Wainwright, director of Europol, has suggested that internet users across the EU get involved in the fight against cyber crime.

He proposed an internet crime reporting system during a briefing with a Lords EU sub-committee on plans for a European cyber crime centre.

The BBC reported that Wainwright told the committee the system would "collect all internet crime reported online at a national level, in a harmonised way across the EU".

He added that it would have to be able to show connections between investigations to police in the member states.

Mark Darvill of security firm AEP Networks welcomed the news. "Cyber crime has advanced and governments across Europe are upping the ante when it comes to fighting internet crime," he said. "For the EU Internal Security Strategy to be effective, governments across Europe need to unite."

Alan Bentley, senior vice president international at IT security firm Lumension, was more cautious. "For crowd sourcing to be effective, the public need to know what to look for and how to ensure they are not unknowingly helping criminals," he said.

"Stuxnet and Wikileaks certainly helped bring cyber crime into the public consciousness. But the public's knowledge around the techniques and threats is still relatively limited. For crowd sourcing to work, an ongoing education process is required," he added.