Proposals should focus on:

• Enhancing the operational capacity of law enforcement and/or judicial authorities to investigate cyber-attacks and cyber enabled crime, for instance through investigative techniques and tools (including for digital forensics) with a focus on top threat priorities (excluding online Child Sexual Abuse Material, which is covered by specific calls for proposals) as presented in EUROPOL’s Internet Organised Crime Threat Assessment 2021. Areas that have been identified by EU Member States as needing particular attention include: digital Forensics (mobile forensics, computer forensics, network forensics, IoT forensics including vehicle forensics), visual data analysis, malware analysis and reverse engineering capabilities, cryptocurrencies analysis and seizure, efficient storage, processing, analysis and transfer of big data, understanding and exploiting “threat intelligence” and metadata, Darkweb monitoring & investigations, OSINT
• Enhancing the operational capacity of law enforcement and/or judicial authorities to address the challenges posed by 5G and application level communication in the area of lawful interception, with a focus on relevant standardisation activities.
• Enhancing the operational capacity of law enforcement and/or judicial authorities to address the challenges posed by the use of encryption by criminals and its impact on criminal investigations, for instance by supporting the establishment, extension and development of points of expertise and their networking at EU level or supporting the development of a toolbox of alternative investigation techniques to obtain needed information encrypted by criminals (with the exclusion of measures that could weaken encryption in general or could have an impact on a larger or indiscriminate number of people)
• Enhancing the operational capacity of law enforcement and/or judicial authorities to cooperate across borders, for instance supporting the gathering and provision of digital evidence, supporting the secondment of officials, improving the efficiency of 24/7 (permanent) law enforcement contact points for cybercrime, establishment of dedicated platforms
• Enhancing the cooperation between private entities and/or authorities in the area of cybersecurity and law enforcement and/or judicial authorities, taking remedial action, including by setting of appropriate information exchange systems (or interfaces to make better use of existing systems)
• Increasing and enhancing reporting of cybercrime to law enforcement authorities
• Providing public authorities with an accurate picture of the real (i.e. included unreported) extent of cybercrime.
• Proposals focusing on
  exclusively raising the overall level of awareness on Cybercrime and digital investigations, e.g. when targeted at the general public,
• research without clear links to operational output,
• Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) are covered by other EU funding Programmes or other calls for proposals and therefore are not considered as relevant for funding under this call.