The operation, supported by the European Centre for Cybercrime Europol took place in Spain, Belgium, France, Hungary, Lithuania, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States between 5 December and 9 December 2016. Most detainees are young people under 20 years throwing attacks by denial of service (DDoS), Europol said in a statement. These automated services used “software” to flood servers and web pages with massive amounts of information so that they became unresponsive and became inaccessible to legitimate users. Europol’s European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) head Steven Wilson stated that “Today’s generation is closer to technology than ever before, with the potential of exacerbating the threat of cyber crime. Many IT enthusiasts get involved in seemingly low-level fringe cybercrime activities from a young age, unaware of the consequences that such crimes carry.” Hence, the director of the European Centre for Cybercrime, Steven Wilson, warned that young “enthusiasts of new technologies” can engage in criminal activities on the Internet without realizing the consequences. According to the director of the European Centre for Cybercrime, Steven Wilson, the police authorities should adopt as “priority” interaction with young people to help them find “more constructive goals” for their computer skills. The Europol representative stressed that many of the skills that demonstrate youth involved in such criminal activities are “high demand” for companies and there are many job opportunities in the field of new technologies, beyond cybercrime. According to a report published last October by Europol, it is necessary to develop prevention strategies and promote “positive and legal” alternatives to channel young talent to careers in technology and security sectors.
