DIGINEXUS

Full Title

DIGINEXUS: Empowering Law Enforcement to Disrupt Criminal Digital Infrastructure

Grant Agreement No.

101308817

Programme

Horizon Europe

Call Topic

HORIZON-CL3-2025-01-FCT-03

Duration

36 months (1 October 2026 - 30 September 2029)

Budget (Total)

€ ~3.7Μ

Budget (VUB)

€ 433.687,50

Keywords

Hybrid threats; OSINT; Cybersecurity; Information manipulation; FIMI; Digital infrastructure; Law enforcement

The DIGINEXUS project empowers European law enforcement to detect, understand, and disrupt the digital infrastructures that enable organised crime and hybrid threats - from bulletproof hosting and botnets to monetisation and crime-as-a-digital-service supply chains. It delivers three concrete outputs: (1) a consolidated evidence base that characterises the infrastructure market - its actors, services and business models; (2) a governed Dashboard & Toolkit that integrates proven capabilities to make investigations faster, safer and reproducible; and (3) a practical Disruption Framework that converts investigative insights into coordinated operational and regulatory action across borders. Together, these components equip police authorities to act faster, cooperate securely across borders, and turn intelligence into operational and regulatory disruption.

VUB-HALL leads Work Package 2 "Requirements, methodology design and operational-legal baseline", which captures practitioner needs across the full investigative cycle and maps existing interoperability standards to consolidate relevant EU research outputs. VUB-HALL also leads the operational-legal baseline and ethics governance in DIGINEXUS, coordinates the External Ethics Advisory Board, and reviews data acquisition and processing for compliance with the GDPR and fundamental-rights standards. As the project moves from research to implementation, VUB-HALL leads the development of the restricted Disruption Playbook, co-authored with practitioners, which links each type of criminal infrastructure to lawful disruption routes, and co-develops the Analytical Collaboration Layer of the DIGINEXUS Dashboard. 

PROTECT.NGO [CH] (Project Coordinator); VRIJE UNIVERSITEIT BRUSSEL [BE]; ATHINA-EREVNITIKO KENTRO KAINOTOMIAS STIS TECHNOLOGIES TIS PLIROFORIAS, TON EPIKOINONION KAI TIS GNOSIS [GR]; CHECK FIRST OY [FI]; HOCHSCHULE FUR DEN OFFENTLICHEN DIENST IN BAYERN [DE]; EU DISINFOLAB [BE]; ESC DIJON BOURGOGNE [FR]; GLOBSEC [SK]; OBSINT RY [FI]; EUROPEAN INSTITUTE FOUNDATION [BG]; KENTRO MELETON ASFALEIAS [GR]; HELLENIC POLICE [GR]; MINISTERIO DA ADMINISTRACAO INTERNA [PT]; GLAVNA DIREKTSIA NATSIONALNA POLITSIA [BG]

Project’s website

CORDIS