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Nobody pays attention when Scott Jones’ team fends off 2 to 7 billion that’s right, billion cyberattacks of various degrees of maliciousness every day.
But one breach and the importance of the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, the institute that Jones runs, comes into sharp focus.
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The ransomware attack that hit Georgia, U.S.-based Colonial Pipeline Co. reverberated across the world and caught the attention of industry and intelligence agencies, which scurried to compare notes and raise the alarm.
According to a Canadian security expert, the ransomware attack on a major U.S. gasoline pipeline should put complacent Canadian citizens and political leaders on high alert to the threat of online attacks against critical infrastructure.
“My sense is we are seriously vulnerable, and this [attack] is a major canary in the coal mine,” Christian Leuprecht, a Queen’s University professor and senior fellow in security and defence at the Macdonald Laurier Institute, said in an interview days after the ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline Co.
When the company learned of the attack on May 7, it shut down all pipeline operations and some IT systems to contain the threat. Reporting suggests it’s slowly opening the lines and hopes to be fully operational by the end of this week. However, the website hosting Colonial’s media statements was offline Tuesday morning after being available late Monday.
TORONTO Activists, experts and policy makers are speaking out on what they describe as an ever-growing “influence” of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in Canadian business, academic and political circles. There has been mounting scrutiny on the CCP’s increased flexing of its intelligence muscles since the ascension of President Xi Jinping in 2013. Canada’s intelligence agencies have taken the rare step of naming China as a significant threat to the country’s sovereignty, with CSIS director David Vigneault publicly saying in a February 2021 speech that Canadians are being “aggressively” targeted by foreign interests – and Beijing was engaged in “activities that are a direct threat to our national security and sovereignty.”
A Richmond Hill, Ont.-based exercise equipment e-commerce site, a Montreal industrial packaging manufacturer and a Toronto cosmetics maker have something in common: Their names have appeared on ransomware groups’ websites claiming to have stolen and encrypted their data.
If these businesses want their data back, they’ll have to pay a ransom. If they don’t, ransomware groups warn the data – some of which may include personal information on employees and customers – will be publicly released.
IT World Canada isn’t identifying the companies because the attacks haven’t been confirmed. But the ransomware groups involved – Conti and Babuk – aren’t known for bluffing.