CYBERSECURITY STRATEGY BELGIUM 2.0 – 2021-2025 Disrupting this criminal cyber infrastructure partially undermines the criminals’ business model. This can include: - Detecting and neutralizing the infrastructure through legal means Detecting compromised systems and notifying the owner Protecting public and corporate communications from known malicious infrastructure Sharing information nationally and internationally It requires all intelligence and security agencies to work closely together. 3.4.3 Develop an appropriate repressive capacity To reduce Belgium’s vulnerability in the cyber domain, preventive measures are crucial. Well-informed and resilient citizens, businesses and governments will ward off and discourage future cybercriminals. The influx of criminal cases decreases with each investment in prevention. As a result, the police and the judiciary will no longer have to deal only with symptoms, but must be able to tackle the root causes. At the same time, it is clear that cybercrime will continue. An effective and competent repressive shutting-down mechanism is therefore still needed to optimally address the residual category of computer crimes committed. Perpetrators of computer crime must be identified and caught, and evidence of the part they play must be gathered. As stated above, the criminal infrastructure must be mapped out and dismantled, illegal assets must be seized and confiscated, and the suspects must be prosecuted and properly punished. Since cybercriminals mainly operate in an international context, this also requires coordination with other countries affected. This strategic plan’s ambition is to support the development of an appropriate repressive capacity. Such repressive capacity must be able to adequately and competently detect, investigate, prosecute, and sanction cybercrime. The objective here is first of all to build up the appropriate capacity and expertise at all levels of the integrated police (both the local police and the decentralised and central services of the federal police) so that the mapping-out and investigation capacities expected of each level can be effectively and quickly realised in a digital environment. The intention is subsequently to ensure that the prosecutor’s offices and the courts of all judicial districts and residences have sufficient prosecutors, 28