📋 Tender Overview
Grant agreement ID: 101168360
DOI
10.3030/101168360
EC signature date
16 July 2024
Start date
1 November 2024
End date
31 October 2027
Description
Technological advancements create opportunities for sophisticated cybercrimes that, through innovative tactics and techniques, pose serious security and financial risks to the EU and beyond. The EU-funded ENSEMBLE project aims to combat cross-border cybercrime using advanced AI-based technology, multi-stakeholder investigation processes, training, and awareness. The project focuses on detecting and preventing ransomware, cyber fraud, data theft, extortion, unauthorised access, and crypto-jacking. It will develop an AI-based investigation toolbox to assist police authorities in detecting, extracting, processing, and analysing online information relevant to cybercrime activities. Additionally, it emphasises joint multi-stakeholder operations at both national and cross-border levels and will provide innovative training curricula and methods for police authorities, prosecutors, and judicial actors involved in these investigations.
Objective
Technology advancements enhance everyday life, but they also provide numerous opportunities for the proliferation of advanced cybercrimes, which, via innovative tactics and techniques, pose serious security and financial risks to EU and beyond. ENSEMBLE aims to provide a well-rounded response to the fight against (cross-border) cybercriminal activities, at the nexus of advanced AI-based technological solutions, (multi-stakeholder) investigations processes, training, and awareness in order to detect and prevent cybercrime-related activities, with particular focus on ransomware, cyber fraud, data theft and extortion as well as unauthorised access and crypto-jackings. This will be achieved via a three-pillar approach. ENSEMBLE will develop a modular AI-based, forensically sound investigation toolbox based on user centric criteria, to assist Police Authorities in detecting, extracting, processing, and analysing online information relevant to cybercrime activities, thus fighting sophisticated cyber-threats, capitalising also in joint multi-stakeholder operations both at national and cross border level and in secure data and information sharing mechanisms. Police Authorities, prosecutors, and judicial actors involved in such investigations will be offered innovative training curricula and methods as well as synchronous and/or asynchronous learning methodologies that will be aligned to their needs and improve their current capacity, taking into consideration the technological, procedural, operational, legal/multi-jurisdictional dimensions. Finally, public awareness and engagement with relevant actors for early identification and prevention of cybercrimes will be cultivated through targeted awareness raising campaigns and specific policy recommendations. Having brough together a multidisciplinary team of five LEAs, seven research/academic institutions and six
