OSCE trains Central Asian law enforcement experts to combat cybercrime through open source digital forensics

Law enforcement experts from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan have improved their capacity to fight cybercrime through a training course organized on 16-20 May by the OSCE Transnational Threats Department in close co-operation with the OSCE Programme Office in Nur-Sultan and the Law Enforcement Academy under the General Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

The course was the first part of the two-week training programme originally developed by the European Cybercrime Training and Education Group (ECTEG). It provided participants with knowledge and skills necessary for understanding steps and key principles of a digital forensic process, reading computer data and using available open-source forensic tools to analyze data.

Digital forensic experts from Estonia, Georgia, Norway and Romania delivered the training. Participants also completed a half-day online session on human rights compliance in cybercrime investigations that was delivered by legal experts from Slovenia and the Netherlands.

“Cybercrime is one of the key challenges of our time. Cyberspace has no territorially based boundaries and, therefore, international co-operation is absolutely necessary if we want to effectively address threats emanating from it. Our Academy is proud to host this regional course and in co-operation with our international partners, such as the OSCE, our ambition is to become a regional training hub for combatting cybercrime and increasing cybersecurity in Central Asia in the future,” said Magomed Akaev, the Director of the Institute of Professional Development at the Law Enforcement Academy in his opening remarks.

The course was delivered within the framework of the OSCE extra-budgetary project “Capacity Building on Combating Cybercrime in Central Asia” funded by the United States of America and the Republic of Korea. The second part of the course will take place on 20-24 June 2022.