Tag: IT

The recent release of key recommendations from a group of cyber security experts will form the cornerstone of the Ontario government’s security policies and help in the creation of a four-year strategic plan, the province’s chief information security officer (CISO) Rhonda Bunn said today.

First formed in October 2020, the 10-member expert panel committed to providing the provincial government with a final report within two years that outlines the steps that broader public sector (BPS) organizations, which include school boards, municipalities, hospitals and other provincially funded agencies in Ontario, must take to remain secure.

During her keynote speech in Guelph at InfoSec 2022, organized by the Ontario division of the Municipal Information Systems Association (MISA), Bunn whose formal title is CISO of the province’s cyber security division, Government Information Technology Ontario (GovTechON) and the ministry of public and business service delivery, stressed the need for information-sharing.

When

Life is what you make it, and nobody knows that better than Stacey McLennan-Waldal, a data scientist who currently works in PwC’s Calgary office in the firm’s advanced analytics practice.

The low point for her professionally occurred three years ago, at a time when the oil and gas sector was hit with a double whammy – the onset of COVID-19 and slumping oil prices. McLennan-Waldal, who worked for an exploration and production (E&P) company as a chemical engineer, received a layoff notice, not while on the job, but while on maternity leave with her second child.

After realizing it was time to look for another profession in another industry, the start of the high point came when she signed up for a three-month bootcamp with tech education firm Lighthouse Labs.

It was, said McLennan-Waldal, an easy decision to make. “One of the roles I had held was as a

Cybercrime is still the number one cyber threat to Canadians, according to the latest edition of the government’s national cyber threat report.

In addition, the state-sponsored cyber programs of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea continue to pose the greatest strategic cyber threat to the country, says the report. “Critical infrastructure is still a prime target for both cybercriminals and state-sponsored actors alike.”

It’s part of the updated National Cyber Threat Assessment released today by federal government’s Canadian Center for Cyber Security, part of the Communications Security Establishment (CSE).

The 40-page report covering 2023-2024 says:

• • • Ransomware is a persistent threat to Canadian organizations. Cybercrime continues to be the cyber threat activity most likely to affect Canadians and Canadian organizations. Due to its impact on an organization’s ability to function, ransomware is almost certainly the most disruptive form of cybercrime facing Canadians. Cybercriminals deploying ransomware have evolved in a growing

One of Ukraine’s cybersecurity leaders was a surprise video guest at BlackBerry’s annual Security Summit on Wednesday, thanking multinational companies for helping the country blunt cyber attacks from Russia and offering tips on cyber resiliency to CISOs.

“We’re lucky we have light,” Victor Zhora told an audience in New York and, by Internet, around the world, as he sat under a lamp in what looked like a room filled with CD albums, “because we have power outages” from Russian missile attacks.

“Unfortunately cyber challenges are not the only ones in our everyday life.”

Zhora was the co-founder of a cybersecurity firm in Ukraine, but is now deputy head of state services for special communications and information protection of Ukraine, a department responsible for defending the country’s digital infrastructure and its cyber incident response team. There are other nine other agencies with cybersecurity mandates.

It was just after 10 p.m. in