EU to take action on cybercrime

by Paul Meller

April 23, 2002 —

The European Commission has adopted measures to combat criminal activity against information systems, such as hacking, creating viruses and launching denial of service attacks, it said Tuesday.

The approach aims to harmonize laws across the fifteen member states of the European Union.

"There is a vast amount of network traffic, of which only a very small percentage is problematic, and can be disruptive," Commissioner responsible for Enterprise and the Information Society Erkki Liikanen said.

Although it is a small part of online activity, "cybercrime is still crime which needs to be dealt with," he said.

The proposal is technologically neutral, in that it will apply to all forms of online material, the Commission said in a statement.

The ultimate objective is to protect users and to promote improvement of security of information infrastructures, while balancing different societal interests, such as network security, law-enforcement powers, and privacy protection, the Commission said.

IDG News Service