CENTRIC presented the results of its analysis of the amount of cybercrime in Yorkshire and Humberside at AQL’s headquarters at Salem Chapel, Leeds on 30 November 2016. The presentation was part of Smart Cities: A Leeds Perspective jointly organised by the Women in Sustainable Construction & Property, the UK Business Council for Sustainable Development and The Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment. The research was carried out in conjunction with Stuart Hyde (Ambassador for the Yorkshire Humberside Cyber security Information Sharing Partnership (CISP)) to highlight the risk of cybercrime within the Yorkshire and Humber region.

Based on current data, the key takeaways were:

• Approximately 3% of people in the region will be a victim of cybercrime per year, rising to 4.5% in South Yorkshire
• There is approximately one cybercrime per business in the Yorkshire and Humber region per year
• This is only the tip of the iceberg as many cybercrimes still go unreported or undetected at the regional level

Full details can be found in this document.

The October issue of the ATHENA project newsletter is now available – Newsletter – October 2016

The newsletter highlights the final prototype testing exercise that took place at the West Yorkshire Police Training and Development Centre in Wakefield, UK on the 27th September, 2016 taking you behind the scenes of the exercise.

The ATHENA project is due to end on the 30th November, 2016, for  further information about Project Athena please visit www.projectathena.eu.

Professor Babak Akhgar (Director of CENTRIC) was invited to speak at the National Open Source Intelligence and Investigations Conference – ‘Professionalising Open Source Conference’ at Hinckley Island Hotel in Leicestershire from the 4th – 6th October.

The conference provided an opportunity for delegates from a wide range of organisations to explore the issues, share their experiences and develop the vision for utilising open source intelligence in their investigations.

For further information about the conference please visit the website – http://www.cvent.com/events/open-source-conference-2016

CENTRIC representatives attended the final platform demonstration & dissemination workshop of its UINFC2 on the 20th of September in Athens, Greece.

The major objective of UINFC2 was to design and develop an interoperable software platform, to enable communication of information, seamlessly and securely, with existing reporting systems, aiming to:

• build and strengthen the capabilities of stakeholders to strategically combat cybercrime and online child sexual exploitation.
• assist the automatic detection of online illegal data from social media, blogs, communities etc. using innovative techniques and to facilitate the formal exchange of the produced information.
• produce strategic reports on cybercrime and online child sexual exploitation trends and emerging threats.

During the aforementioned event, the final version of the UINFC2 platform was presented to workshop participants where they were provided with the opportunity to gain hands-on experience with the system. Additionally, major findings and conclusions of the project were presented to all relevant stakeholders to promote cooperation and coordination between interested parties.

The event also included participants and presenters from organisations such as Europol/EC3, EU Member States Law Enforcement Agents, National Hotlines and National Cybercrime Centres.

UINFC2 Project is Co-funded by the Prevention of and Fight against Crime Programme of the European Union.

For more information, please visit http://www.uinfc2.eu

Professor Babak Akhgar (CENTRIC Director) was invited to provide a key note speech at the European Intelligence and Security Informatics Conference 2016 (EISIC 16) on August 17th – 19th  2016 in Uppsala, Sweden.

The EISIC conference is the Premier European Conference on Counterterrorism and Criminology and Professor Akhgar’s Keynote was on the subject of Development of Situational Awareness Capabilities using Open Source Intelligence specifically providing a focus on;  OSINT, Critical success factors for combining OSINT with real time analytics and an Identification of the core requirements for a situational awareness platform.

For further information about the conference and the keynote please visit the website – http://www.eisic.eu/keynote.aspx

CENTRIC was invited to, and spoke at, the EUROPOL conference, “Privacy in the Digital Age of Encryption and Anonymity Online” as part of a panel of experts. This conference enables members from academia, NGOs, the Data Protection Community, and other interested experts to debate importance issues on privacy, security, encryption, anonymisation and pseudonymisation. The objectives of the conference are to improve participants’ knowledge on these topics, provide a platform for knowledge exchange, and create a valuable group of experts in the field for future cooperation.

A short discussion with Prof Babak Akhgar from CENTRIC about the current situation of cyber security, encryption and anonymisation can be found at: https://youtu.be/aVwMawymHic

For more information: http://www.eipa.eu/files/repository/product/20160215135622_1611302_Europol.pdf

The Police Strategy Forum is a conference which brings together the finest thought leaders from across the United Kingdom and provides the police with the opportunity to share ideas, benchmark best practices, and deliver better services to citizens. Professor Babak Akhgar of CENTRIC chaired the forum and further information on the agenda for the day can be found Here.

For further information regarding the event visit: http://www.policestrategyforum.com/

CENTRIC presented the results of its work on the COURAGE project, along with ongoing consolidated work with its sister projects CAMINO and CyberRoad at the “Future Challenges in Cyber Crime and Cyber Terrorism Research: the CyberROAD perspective” event, held at the Auditorium of the Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, University of Cagliari – Piazza d’Armi, Cagliari, Italy on May 25th, 2016. Further information about the event along with copies of the slides and conference agenda can be found at: https://www.cyberroad-project.eu/en/events/

The COURAGE, CAMINO, and CyberROAD consortia hosted the COURAGE-CAMINO-CyberROAD joint conference, which took place in The Hague, on Thursday 10th and Friday 11th of March, 2016. The event was part of an overall thinking and exchange process that aimed at promoting a European vision and road-map for the fight against cybercrime and cyberterrorism, a priority for the European Union and the basis upon which all three projects were initiated.

The event provided SMEs, the industry sector, scientific communities and end users with a forum to exchange ideas and challenges presented by the projects in order to elaborate strategies and priorities for a common road-map to fight cybercrime and cyberterrorism.

In particular, the goal of the two-day event was to gather insights regarding cybercrime and cyberterrorism in Europe and beyond, and to discuss further developments in the methodology, technology, and foundations for the design and effective implementation of a European road-map for the fight against cybercrime and cyberterrorism.

The outcome of the workshop helped towards the development of a consolidated road-map between COURAGE, CAMINO, and CyberROAD which will be presented to the European Commission by mid-2016. This road-map will aim to clarify the various interpretations, commonalities, and differences emanating from the European cybersecurity community as well as the results of the three projects, thereby paving the way for a more structured and well‐founded approach to future road-maps and initiatives in the fight against cybercrime and cyberterrorism, including research and technology, education and training, and standards.

The COURAGE-CAMINO-CyberROAD event gathered experts in the fight against cybercrime and cyberterrorism.
The two-day event consisted of:

– Presentations of the outcomes from the COURAGE, CAMINO and CyberROAD projects

– Panels organised in 5 sessions, chaired by cybersecurity experts (from European and national institutions, academia…), on topics related to:

o Law and Law Enforcement (needs, challenges, solutions and practice)

o Solutions for the future: COURAGE-CAMINO-CyberRoad ideas (working session)

o Citizens, Enterprise and Private Industry (needs, challenges, solutions and practice)

o Government, Policy, Strategies and Awareness Raising

o Emerging Technologies and Solutions (including legal considerations, best practices etc.)

More information is available in the Conference Booklet here.

CENTRIC’s new information booklet is available to download below and contains useful information about CENTRIC’s expertise, team members projects and capabilities. Alongside this it contains information from one of CENTRIC’s key collaborators, SAP.

The booklet is available here: Centric Booklet 2015