The sixth meeting of the Project Steering Committee (PSC) of the joint project of the European Union and the Council of Europe, iPROCEEDS-2, took place in Strasbourg, France on 28 November 2022 with the purpose to overview the progress made towards objectives and results of the project during 2022, assess the delivered activities, collect countries/area feedback, express needs for capacity building support for the following period, in order to ensure proper planning, monitoring and implementation of the project.
The Project Steering Committee meeting was attended by representatives of the European Commission, the Council of Europe and priority countries/area – delegates of Public Prosecution Offices, Police Cybercrime Investigation Units, Justice Academies and achieved its overall objectives by sharing updates from the countries/area of interest, presenting the project’s achievements and discussing future actions. The meeting ended with an open debate of the working plan for the next year and a conceptual discussion for further cybercrime and electronic evidence capacity building initiatives in the region for 2024 and beyond. The next PSC is planned to take place in June 2023.
On the same day, other additional activities were organised, aiming to present, discuss and steer debate on key developments provided by the Second Additional Protocol to the Budapest Convention and the newly developed Guide for conducting criminal investigations of ransomware attacks.
The International meeting on new mechanisms for international cooperation under the Second Additional Protocol to the Budapest Convention and the workshop on domestic implementation of new provisions for emergency international cooperation enhanced the participants’ understanding of the new mechanisms for international cooperation, the main conditions and the new responsibilities of the competent authorities. The participants also gained in-depth knowledge of the new tools and comprehensive perspective of the domestic implementation of the provisions on expedited disclosure of stored computer data and mutual assistance in emergency situations.
The International meeting on launching the Guide for investigations of ransomware attacks focused on introducing the new tool developed under the iPROCEEDS-2 project, granting participants the chance to give their inputs over the main elements of relevant legislation, investigative steps, cooperation with the service providers and international cooperation. During the workshop on collecting evidence in ransomware cases, the participants were introduced to the basic concepts of collecting electronic evidence in ransomware investigations, from identifying the ransomware string, to malware and ransom note analysis and lastly to open source and financial investigation.
