Resolution SEDE

MOTION FOR A RESOLUTION BY THE COMMITTEE ON SECURITY AND DEFENCE (SEDE)

The 2020 Internet Organised Crime Threat Assessment (IOCTA) stated that existing problems regarding cybercrime have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. With cybercriminals taking advantage of the crisis situation, what further steps should the EU take in the fight against internet crime?

Submitted by: Sudenaz Kalkan, Madelief van Poelvoorde, Mika Schukken, Julia Nijgh, Jennah Said (Chairperson, NL)

The European Youth Parliament aims to propose practical and feasible steps to limit the success of cyber attacks, taking into account the rise in cybercriminal activity over the course of the pandemic. The purpose is to protect individuals, institutions, and organisations against cybercrime and ensure that law enforcement agencies are able to effectively apprehend cybercriminals,

because

  1. The number of online child sexual abuse material (CSAM) has continued to climb as a result of the rising usage of video paid chat apps protected by hard-to-access, encrypted communication networks,
  2. Victims of cybercrime seem to be hesitant about reporting to law enforcement agencies, making it harder to create an accurate overview of cybercrime prevalence across the EU,
  3. While modern encryption has significant security benefits, cybercriminals have quickly taken advantage of these benefits to attack the private sector,
  4. Due to the adaptive and expandable nature of complex modular malware, it has become more difficult for law enforcement to apprehend cybercriminals who use these forms of malware,
  5. Due to the lack of awareness of EU citizens on cybercrime, the majority of social engineering and phishing attacks are successful.

Therefore, the European Youth Parliament,

  1. Advises the European Commission to lessen the successfulness  of phishing1Phishing is a type of social engineering where an attacker sends a fraudulent message designed to trick a human victim into revealing sensitive information to the attacker or to deploy malicious software on the victim’s infrastructure like ransomware. scams by looking into the development of  certifications on messenger applications, such as Whatsapp, that only recognise verified companies;
  2. Encourages Member States to provide education about cybersecurity to all citizens in cooperation with the CyberPeace Foundation, by offering:
    1. masterclasses at workplaces, given by experts once every year to keep up with the rapidly changing internet landscape, with a special focus on phishing and personality fraud,
    2. simplified classes about cybersecurity to young children in primary schools,
    3. specific classes for the elderly  to properly learn how to deal with cybersecurity;
  3. Asks major social media platforms, such as Google and Meta, to implement systems that are able to recognise CSAM, similar to content ID2Content ID services are used to allow copyright owners to easily identify and manage their content on Youtube by scanning databases for content that matches theirs., in order for the European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) to deal with such content more easily;
  4. Recommends the European Union Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol)  to create an expansion of the EC3 that specialises in uncovering underground platforms specifically designed for the distribution of CSAM, in order to tackle CSAM on those platforms;
  5. Encourages Member States to create public service announcements about the existing ways to report cybercrime to help victims of cyber-attacks to come forward in order to create an accurate overview of crime prevalence across the EU;
  6. Urges Member States to implement regulations that allow temporary access to the data of customers of companies that deal with data exchange in order to facilitate ongoing investigations in cybercrime.