A 33-year-old man has been sentenced to two years in prison after admitting his part in a series of ransomware and malware attacks that hit more than one thousand individuals, businesses, and organisations — including three police departments.
Read more in my article on the Hot for Security blog.
Category: Canada
Clients of a pregnancy care clinic in Ontario have had their personal information exposed to hackers.
I'm sure I don't need to tell anyone who has made use of the services of a midwife, that a lot can happen in nine months...
Read more in my article on the Hot for Security blog.
A ransomware attack impacting five hospitals in southwestern Ontario, Canada, has seen hackers gain access to a database containing 5.6 million patient visits, and the social insurance numbers of over 1400 employees.
Read more in my article on the Hot for Security blog.
Numerous government websites in Canada experienced performance issues and error messages due to a cyber-attack orchestrated by the India Cyber Force. Federal intelligence agencies have expressed concerns that these attacks could escalate in severity over the upcoming weeks, coinciding with escalating tensions between the Trudeau and Modi administrations.
The genesis of this conflict can be traced back to the Canadian Prime Minister’s allegations against the government led by Shri Narendra Modi. These allegations accused the Modi government of orchestrating the assassination of a prominent Khalistan leader on foreign soil. Modi and his administration vehemently denied these claims.
In response to these accusations, a hacking group based in India, known as the Indian Cyber Force, initiated cyber-attacks on Canada’s national infrastructure. They signaled their intent to continue these intense attacks in the days ahead.
The Canadian Armed Forces’ website bore the brunt of these attacks, with the hackers successfully rendering the portal inaccessible for a period exceeding three hours. This raised eyebrows as military computer networks are typically separate from other government websites. The synchronized disruption across all these platforms was both unexpected and alarming.
Canada’s Defense Minister, Bill Blair, confirmed the incident involving the Canadian Armed Forces and attributed it to a distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS). In this type of attack, hackers flood a web portal with fraudulent traffic, effectively preventing genuine users from accessing it and causing significant disruptions.
S. Jaishankar, India’s Minister of External Affairs, denied claims that the attack had been instigated by Indian intelligence agencies. However, he refrained from commenting on the potential involvement of a cyber organization with ties to the BJP government.
Meanwhile, the Prime Minister’s Office in Canada is closely monitoring the situation and engaging in diplomatic efforts to stay abreast of developments.
The post Canada govt websites disrupted by Cyber Attacks from India appeared first on Cybersecurity Insiders.
Suncor, one of the largest energy companies in North America, has suffered a cyber attack that left Canadian motorists unable to make gas station purchases with payment cards, and even disabled car washes.
Read more in my article on the Hot for Security blog.
The second quarter of 2022 offered plenty of positing on privacy, both in the U.S. and internationally. In the U.S., we saw the addition of another state privacy law, and a spark of hope in privacy professionals’ eyes with the introduction of tangible federal legislation. Plus, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is positioned to act […]… Read More
The post Privacy in Q2 2022: US, Canada, and the UK appeared first on The State of Security.
According to a study conducted by Blake, Cassels Graydon LLP, most of the cyber attacks that were targeted on Canadian companies were of ransomware genre and alarmingly there was an increase in frequency and complexity of attacks.
Coming to ransomware payments, there was a 25% increase in such attacks exceeding USD $1 million on average.
From now on, Canadian businesses will be required to report any kind of digital assaults within 72 hours under a new law introduced early this week.
Currently, those operating in Finance, telecom, energy, transportation and all other public sectors will have to report within 24 hours of cyber attack.
The new legislation will also give additional powers to Justin Trudeau in securing telecom systems against cyber security threats.
As Canada is using a 5G network to secure its critical infrastructure, some security analysts suggest it could exploit vulnerabilities that emerge as new threats.
New legislation Bill C-26 will also block companies from using the products and services from companies that have been tagged as high-risk suppliers, like Huawei, which has been banned by United States and 7 other countries across the world.
Note- Ransomware is a kind of malware that encrypts files until a ransom is paid. These days’ cyber crooks are indulging in double extortion tactics, where they steal data and force the victim to pay a ransom. And if they refuse, they threaten to leak the stolen data onto the web or claim to sell them on the dark web for a hefty price.
The post Most of the cyber attacks in Canada are ransomware genre appeared first on Cybersecurity Insiders.