The Canadian Government and Cyber Security

Canadians devote 43.5 hours a month online, per capita, that’s more than any other country. Canadians are incredibly interconnected and use the online network available to boost their quality of life, business, and critical infrastructure. This connectedness offers us all exponential benefits, but with those benefits comes vulnerabilities.

The Canadian government has noticed the potential disaster of these vulnerabilities and is intending to commit $500 million towards cyber security investment over the span of five years. This investment will be the largest contribution towards cyber security ever made by the Canadian government. The government is investing so heavily in cyber security because their goal is to become a driving force in the cyber security development; turning cyber security into a “competitive advantage for Canada.” They recognize that security is an essential element to further innovation and prosperity.

In 2016, the government set out to develop a new Cyber Security Strategy, so they launched the Cyber Review. The Cyber Review divulged three main trends - the first trend involves public support for law enforcement to protect privacy and to respond to cybercrime. The public also acknowledges that law enforcement faces a lot of challenges but is worried about the growing threat to both the private and public sectors. The second trend revolves around the call for strong federal leadership to tackle cyber threats, provide consistent messaging, and “foster national collaboration” that will bring in investment, share information, and safeguard privacy and freedom. The third and the most important trend was the need for improved security knowledge and skills. The need for knowledge and skills “extends from our children to our elderly and from our small and medium business owners to our law enforcement agencies and corporate executives.” The shortage of cyber security talent makes it increasingly difficult for both private and public sectors to improve their relationship with cyber security. [1] This is where Mindtrades comes in. Our goal is to fill this niche and provide the very best service towards amending the vulnerabilities in your company’s systems and providing the knowledge that you and your employees need to fill gaps in knowledge that so many Canadians possess.