Senior Specialist European Cyber Crime Centre, Operations (m/f/d)

Europol is looking for a

Senior Specialist European Cyber Crime Centre, Operations (m/f/d)

About Europol

This selection procedure is intended to establish a reserve list of successful candidates (indicative number is 3). Europol may retain the right to make use of the reserve list to select candidates for similar posts, should business needs require so. There is currently 1 (one) post available.Europol is a well-established and recognized organisation that became an EU agency in 2010. It is constantly looking for creative, self-reliant and energetic employees, who are up to the challenges involved in international crime-fighting, to work in its state-of-the-art headquarters in The Hague, the Netherlands.Europol employs more than 1,000 personnel, including around 160 analysts, to identify and track the most dangerous criminal and terrorist networks in Europe. Our people come from a variety of professional backgrounds such as law enforcement, finance, legal, information technologies, human resources, communication, etc.Working in close-knit teams, our specialists use their expertise and our cutting-edge technology to support investigations into serious organised crime and terrorism within and outside the EU.

Europol has:

• disrupted many criminal and terrorist networks
• contributed to the arrest of thousands of dangerous criminals
• helped recover millions of euros of crime proceeds
• helped hundreds of victims of trafficking and abuse, including children

The working environment at Europol has a lot to offer. It is:

• highly collaborative
• intellectually stimulating
• multilingual
• multidisciplinary
• international

Prospective candidates should be prepared to work in a dynamic and fast-moving environment that requires a high level of flexibility, and should have the ability to perform well within a team.The Operations Directorate deals with the core business of Europol, improving the effectiveness and cooperation of the competent authorities in the Member States (MS) in preventing and combating serious and organised crime, as well as terrorism affecting the MS. This requires close cooperation with the Liaison Bureaux at Europol and via them with the Operational Teams in the MS.
Europol delivers a number of products and services to national law enforcement agencies to support them in their fight against international serious and organised crime, as well as terrorism.The Operations Directorate hosts five distinct Departments: Operational and Analysis Centre, European Serious & Organised Crime Centre, European Cyber Crime Centre, European Counter Terrorism Centre, European Financial and Economic Centre.The European Cyber Crime Centre (EC3) serves as the centre for the Member States’ fight against cybercrime in the European Union, delivering operational and investigative support to the MS on complex cybercrime investigations. It also provides support to the European Union’s institutions and MS in building operational and analytical capacity for investigations and cooperation with external partners.

Background, main purpose and tasks of the post

EC3 is the collective voice of European cybercrime investigators across law enforcement and as such it is responsible for the coordination and delivery of all strategic products and external liaison.EC3 Operations is responsible for delivering the operational services of EC3. EC3 Operations has five teams, namely Dark Web, Cyber Intelligence, Cyborg, Terminal and Twins. From EC3 Operations there is also the link with the Joint Cybercrime Action Taskforce (J-CAT).The post is located in Analysis Project (AP) Twins. AP Twins supports the competent authorities of the EU MS in preventing and combating all forms of criminality associated with online sexual exploitation and abuse of children and offline related crimes.AP Twins provides assistance and expertise in combating the creation and distribution of child abuse material through all kinds of online environments as well as in tackling forms of criminal online behaviour against children, such as grooming, self-generated indecent material, sexual extortion and live distant child abuse.The selected candidate will play a key role among technical specialists within AP Twins and will be tasked with receiving and extracting operational information from various sources in complex formats. That information requires accurate interpretation so that it can be incorporated in and accessed through the Europol Analysis System and by the analysts of AP Twins. The role can involve viewing child sexual abuse material, reviewing text descriptions of same and related specialist tasks which might be disturbing.

Functions and Duties

• Support and assist the Team Leader in their responsibilities related to any operational activities in the area of child sexual exploitation, such as coordinating support to investigations, providing expertise and knowledge at strategic and operational level;
• Support the development and the implementation of the Europol strategy in the field of Child Sexual Exploitation by, for example, ensuring the delivery of agile operational support, innovating solutions for partners and ensuring Europol’s position as the EU criminal information hub;
• Lead or participate in European or international projects related to online child abuse and child exploitation;
• Support the AP Twins team in the collection of data from MS and facilitating the exchange of information between them;
• Contribute to the investigations in the MS by forwarding all relevant information to the National Units, notifying the competent authorities of any relevant information and informing them of any connections identified between criminal offences;
• Provide to MSs operational and forensic support on investigations against child sexual exploitation on the spot and at Europol Headquarters;
• Develop, maintain and update operational expertise on child sexual exploitation including trends, new modus operandi and new techniques used by criminals through research, study and liaison with relevant agencies and experts;
• Produce operational reports and documents in the area of online child sexual exploitation and abuse;
• Establish close contacts with the MS and Third Parties’ Liaison Officers to encourage and support operational activities in the field of responsibility of the team;
• Provide specialist guidance to, and participate in Joint Investigation Teams (JITs);
• Manage training courses and deliver training to MS and internally;
• Participate in stand-by duty and/or shift work, if and when required;
• Perform any other duties in the area of competence as assigned by the line manager.

Requirements – eligibility criteria

a. Candidates must

• Be a member of a competent authority in the meaning of the Article 2a) of the Europol Regulation and enjoy full rights as a citizen of a Member State;
• Have fulfilled any obligations imposed by the applicable laws on military service;
• Produce appropriate character references as to his or her suitability for the performance of the duties;
• Be physically fit to perform the duties pertaining to the position (prior to appointment the successful candidate will be medically examined by one of the institution’s medical officers in order that the institution may be satisfied that the candidate fulfils the requirements of Article 12(2)(d) CEOS);
• Produce evidence of a thorough knowledge of one of the languages of the Union and a satisfactory knowledge of another language of the Union to the extent necessary for the performance of the duties.

b. Candidates must have

• A level of education which corresponds to completed university studies attested by a diploma when the normal period of university education is four years or more;

OR

• A level of education which corresponds to completed university studies attested by a diploma and appropriate professional experience of at least one year when the normal period of university education is three years;

OR

• Professional training of an equivalent level in a relevant area (e.g. Police Officer’s School) and after having completed the training, at least the number of years of relevant professional experience as indicated below:

Duration of professional training      Additional professional experience                                                                                                                           required for equivalency
More than 6 months and up to 1 year           4 years
More than 1 year and up to 2 years                3 years
More than 2 years and up to 3 years              2 years
More than 3 years                                              1 year

• In addition to the above at least 6 years of total professional work experience gained after the award of the diploma.

Requirements – selection criteria

a. Professional experience (assessed mainly during the shortlisting phase):
Essential:

• Experience in coordination of and participation in investigations dealing with the sexual exploitation of children on the internet;
• Experience in producing intelligence reports and other intelligence products;
• Experience in computer programming required to process large volumes of operational data;
• Experience in lab and on-site computer forensics and live digital forensics.

Desirable:

• Experience working in an international environment;
• Experience in the area of victim identification;
• Experience working in a central cybercrime unit in one of the EU MS.

b. Professional knowledge (assessed during the selection procedure – written/practical test and/or interview):
Essential:

• Knowledge of threats and trends in the area of child sexual exploitation and/or high tech crimes;
• Knowledge of the law-enforcement environment and intelligence practices in general and in the field of fighting child sexual exploitation in particular, preferably at international level;
• Knowledge of international legal instruments in the area of cybercrime and of the EU legal framework, particularly in the area of law enforcement cooperation;
• Thorough knowledge of lab and on-site digital forensic techniques, software and hardware including Linux, Windows, MacOS and mobile devices;
• Thorough knowledge of computer programming, particularly in Python and Perl, and ability to apply that knowledge to the processing of operational information;
• Knowledge of Darknet forensic artefacts, technologies and communities.

Desirable:

• Knowledge of SQL (e.g. MySQL, MSSQL, PostgreSQL), NoSQL (e.g. Elasticsearch, Apache Solr, MongoDB) and graph databases (e.g. NEO4j, ArrangoDB);
• Knowledge of virtual currencies investigations.

c. General competencies (assessed during the Selection procedure – written/practical test and/or interview):
Essential:

Communicating:

• Excellent communication skills in English, both orally and in writing;
• Excellent presentation skills;
• Ability to draft clear and concise documents on complex matters for various audiences.

Analysing & problem solving:

• Structured approach to work aimed at getting results;
• Excellent analytical and critical thinking skills;
• Competent user of Microsoft Office applications (MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook) and the internet.

Delivering quality and results:

• High degree of commitment and flexibility;
• High level of customer and service-orientation.

Prioritising and organising:

• Excellent organizational skills including the ability to plan own work load, establish clear priorities and exercise initiative;
• Ability to manage projects and familiarity with project management terminology and methodology.

Resilience:

• Strong ability to work well both independently and in a team;
• Very good interpersonal skills, including the ability to effectively liaise with other departments, groups and teams as well as with external partners;
• Ability to remain effective under a heavy workload and demonstrate resistance to stress.

Living diversity:

• Ability to establish and maintain effective working relations with co-workers in an international and multi-disciplinary work environment.

Advising:

• Ability to synthesise various data into a coherent and relevant whole, transforming it into a valuable and correct conclusion;
• Building constructive relationships with clients, adequately identifying and managing their needs and expectations, and giving well-grounded advice.

d. Fulfil the condition stipulated in Article 5 of the Decision of the Executive Director on the Duration of contracts of employment for Temporary Agents, on the start date of the possible contract of employment, which may be offered.

For additional information, please consult the applicable privacy statement available on our website.

Main dates
Deadline for application: 22 April 2021, 23:59 Amsterdam Time Zone
Recruitment procedure:  May/June 2021

Contact details
For further details on the application process please call +31 (0) 70 353 1146 or +31 (0) 70 302 1154.