CERBERUS

The aim of the CERBERUS (Child Exploitation Response by Beating Encryption and Research to Unprotect Systems) project is to take control of the entire security chain through the development and implementation of a European decryption platform to block criminal groups including terrorists, political extremists, drug traffickers and perpetrators of sexual exploitation.

The Forensic Research Institute of the French Gendarmerie (IRCGN – Institut de Recherche Criminelle de la Gendarmerie Nationale) set up the project in partnership with the Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI), University College Dublin – National University of Ireland (UCD) and CIVIPOL.

The two main components of the CERBERUS project are:

1. Research and development through:

• low-level performance: identifying the various hardware components dedicated to encryption and their protection
• operating system: analysing the operating system and its interactions with the lower layers to detect and exploit vulnerabilities
• application layer: analysing the reverse engineering of applications to reveal the cryptographic algorithms used, extracting the possible encryption keys and determining the date storage methods.
• script development: countering the cryptography or the implementation of software modules which allow passords to be cracked via powerul graphic cards

     2. The ability to crack passwords through the creation of high availability password cracking platform with the latest generation hardware.

The IRCGN under the French Ministry of the Interior is the consortium leader.

CIVIPOL is tasked with the project’s financial and administrative management on behalf of the Ministry of the Interior

CERBERUS has received funding from the European Union’s Internal Security Fund under agreement no. 822015.