Court of Auditors criticism:

Too little speed in the fight against cybercrime

Cybercrime is on the rise, but according to the Court of Audit, appropriate measures to combat it are still a long time coming.

(Bild: stock.adobe.com)

The Austrian Court of Audit criticizes the reform measures of the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Justice in the fight against cybercrime. Among other things, the auditing body is offended by the recruitment of designated officers, inconsistent definitions of terms and a lack of resources for the Vienna State Office of Criminal Investigation. 

The Ministry of the Interior envisages a total of more than 700 additional jobs in the criminal service reform presented in September 2023, 300 of which are specifically for the fight against cybercrime, according to the Court of Audit. "However, the recruitment for these jobs had not yet been determined at the time of the follow-up audit," the ACA now states. "The Ministry of the Interior did not give any concrete consideration to how it intended to fill these 300 jobs."

The tenor is that there is no plan for recruitment. The further development of the Cybercrime Competence Center (C4) in the Federal Criminal Police Office into a separate department had also not yet been implemented at the time of the audit, it was criticized.

LKA Vienna "not part of the overall concept"
In its latest report, the Court of Audit also states that the IT Evidence Assistance Division of the Vienna State Criminal Police Office only had "limited resources available" during the audit. This, coupled with increased requirements, meant that files or end devices handed over for evaluation were not processed for months, according to the criticism. Austria's largest state criminal investigation department by far was not part of the overall concept, according to the Court of Audit.

Different definitions of terms
In addition, the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Justice were only partially implementing objectives in the fight against cybercrime and these objectives were not coordinated with each other. Further difficulties were caused by different definitions of terms. For example, only the Ministry of the Interior uses the category "internet fraud", but not the Ministry of Justice.

"This makes it difficult to take effective control measures on the basis of comparable figures," it emphasized. In this context, the Court of Audit reiterated its recommendation to establish uniform definitions "in order to be able to collect and present comparable figures on this basis and take effective control measures".

It was also recommended that the trial operation of the "cybercrime competence centers" at the public prosecutor's offices, which started in 2023, be transferred to regular operation and that cybercrime training centers be set up for the large-scale training of all law enforcement officers.

Ministry of the Interior rejects accusations
However, the Ministry of the Interior has little sympathy for the report. "The personnel offensive launched in 2023 is in full swing with 2,500 new recruits this year alone. The criminal investigation service reform already entered the implementation phase on 1 June 2024, and the new cybercrime training centers are just starting work. None of these measures that have already been implemented are taken into account in the Court of Audit's report," said Franz Ruf, Director General for Public Security.

The adaptation of the organization and processes recommended by the Court of Audit is "merely a further development of the fight against cybercrime that our officers have been consistently waging for years".