Canada’s cybersecurity

Many organizations across the Government have a role to play with respect to Canada’s cybersecurity. Public Safety Canada engages and works with these departments on a number of cybersecurity operations and policy issues.

Public Safety Canada
Public Safety Canada (PS) is mandated to keep Canadians safe from a range of risks such as natural disasters, crime and terrorism. It houses the Government Operations Centre as the hub of the National Emergency Response System. As the policy lead for cybersecurity, the department works with the Government of Canada to ensure Canadians and Canadians business are secure and prosperous in the digital age. It also works with Canadian and international governments, associations, academia and industry to continually advance cybersecurity both domestically and internationally.

Communications Security Establishment (CSE)
The Communications Security Establishment (CSE) is Canada’s national lead for foreign signals intelligence and cyber operations, and the technical authority for cybersecurity. CSE operates the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (Cyber Centre). The Cyber Centre provides expert advice, guidance, services and support on Canada’s cybersecurity for government, critical infrastructure owners and operations, the private sector and the Canadian public. It escalates cyber incidents of national significance to the Government Operations Centre, which then helps coordinate a national response.

Did you know that more than 54% of impacted businesses in Canada report that cybersecurity incidents prevented employees from carrying out day-to-day work, while close to 30% experience additional repair or recovery costs?

Canadian businesses continue to rapidly embrace the Internet and digital technologies, which has the potential to expose them to greater cybersecurity risks and threats. However, the impact of these risks and threats on the investment and day-to-day decisions of businesses are not easily understood as cybersecurity incidents often go unreported.

The following paper from Statistics Canada’s cybersecurity begins by looking at how businesses are exposed to cybersecurity risks and threats through their use of digital technologies and services that are connected to the Internet. It further explores the impact cybercrime had on business operations in 2017 and the reporting practices of businesses after the incident. Finally, the article examines the types of investments businesses had made to manage these risks and threats through the types of cybersecurity measures they employed.

Check out the report