Europe is getting a cybercrime alert system as part of a European Union drive to fight online criminals.
According to plans, European law enforcement body Europol will receive 300,000 euros ($386,430) to build an alert system that pools reports of cybercrime, such as online identification and financial theft, from across the 27 member states.
Police will launch more remote searches of suspects' hard drives over the Internet, as well as cyberpatrols to spot and track illegal activity, under the strategy adopted by the European Union's council of ministers Thursday.
The strategy, a blueprint for fighting cybercrime in the EU over the next five years, also introduces measures to encourage businesses and police to share information on investigations and cybercrime trends.
"The strategy encourages the much-needed operational cooperation and information exchange between the member states," said Jacques Barrot, vice president of the European Commission. "If the strategy is to make the fight against cybercrime more efficient, all stakeholders have to be fully committed to its implementation. We are ready to support them, also financially, in their efforts."
Plans for the EU alert system follow the recent establishments of the Police Central E-crime Unit and National Fraud Strategic Authority, which aim to fight cybercrime in the United Kingdom.
Nick Heath of Silicon.com reported from London.
People in English-speaking countries are targeted for identity fraud at twice the rate of many Europeans, according to a new study released by PayPal on Wednesday.
Ten percent of online shoppers in the U.S., the U.K. and Canada--not-surprisingly, places with high percentages of e-commerce transactions--reported being victims of identity fraud, compared with only 5 percent in France, Germany and Spain, the study conducted by Ipsos found.
The Germans had the lowest rate of identity fraud of the countries, with 3 percent reporting problems.
Meanwhile, the Germans were also found to be more cautious with their passwords. Only about one in four Germans reported ever sharing a password with anyone, compared with 60 percent of Americans and 56 percent of the French.
One in three Americans said they write down their passwords to remember them, while fewer than one in five in all the other countries does so.
As far as changing passwords, the French and Spanish are the most lax. And the French tend to display birth dates on social networking sites and to use birth dates as passwords, the study found.
In Canada, more than half of the respondents said privacy is their number one online concern.
Finally, more than half of all consumers surveyed still receive financial statements in the mail. Only 17 percent of French consumers and 23 percent in Spain own shredders.
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