Law & order

Inside the Google of Counter-Terrorism

Europol, which doesn’t have arrest powers, has played a key role in major terrorism investigations since, including the bombing of American singer Ariana Grande’s concert in Manchester, England, last May. The agency, which has a staff of about 1,200 and a budget of 123 million euros, was formally founded in 1999 to combat the most sophisticated criminal networks, a mandate that now includes coordinating the cyberdefenses of the bloc’s 28 members.

The agency is currently helping with probes into the Wannacry ransomware attack that crippled parts of Britain’s National Health Service and NotPetya, which caused two companies losses of about $300 million. While not surprising to Europol’s cybercrime sleuths, Wainwright said these and other digital assaults, including Russia’s alleged burrowing into the U.S. electric grid, have served as belated wake-up calls in capitals throughout Europe.

“We recognized there was a gap in our collective systems,” he said. Each country already has a team ready to respond to major cyber incidents “and now we’re trying to network them across Europe in a more effective way.”