The national police Rigspolitiet wants to recruit hackers as civilian IT experts to assist them in the fight against cybercriminality, Politiken reports.
The national cybercrime centre NC3 was set up on May 1 this year. The unit’s head, Kim Aarenstrup, told Politiken that he plans to increase the number of civilian IT experts in the unit over the course of next year.
READ MORE: Police launching new cybercrime centre
Career choice
Until now there have been under ten civilian specialists, but the aim is that they will account for 50 percent of a total staff of more than 90 by the end of 2015. “If you’re a hacker, it’s time to make a career choice,” he said.
“If you’ve played with fire a couple of times and think it was exciting, you should think about using your skills on the other side of the fence for the good cause. With us and out in the private sector there is demand for people who understand hackers’ patterns of movement.”
Union: sounds a little crazy
The announcement has been met with mixed reactions. Christian Panton, the co-founder of the internet interest organisation Bitbureauet, indicated that external expertise was needed by the police, but doubted how attractive the proposition would be to hackers. “It’s far too complicated an area to be dealt with only by police-educated people,” he said.
“But it’s hard to say if anyone in our environment would be interested in being employed.”
Claus Oxfeldt, the chairman of the police union Politiforbund was also sceptical about the projected proportion of civilians in the unit. “It sounds a little crazy with 50/50 and it surprises me that we’re up at those numbers,” he said.
“I agree that a few IT types can help with the technology, but investigation is investigation; you can’t get an engineer to interrogate.”
