Canada's Cyber-Security

We're sloppily trusting, to the extent that we allow ourselves to be manipulated by malign forces engaged in cyber-war activities. This is the message from one of Canada's primary security experts, Michel Juneau-Katsuya. Clever subversives becoming knowledgeable through scanning online personal entries available to anyone curious enough to possess them, gain the trust of the innocent and manage, through quiet subterfuge to disarm them and convince them that classified documents can be sent along online.

"Breeches will happen because of human beings getting involved somewhere. Whether that's willingly, unwilling, consciously, or unconsciously. whether they lost or forget something or they simply held open the door for somebody. There is a human factor in it."

Do we breathe a sigh of relief that violent physical confrontations that once marked military events when two countries failed to see eye to eye will no longer loom as large in our futures? Should we be relaxed about the thought that foreign countries invested in espionage and creatively seeking opportunities to acquire secret data to advance their own agendas could create another kind of havoc entirely?

No physical violence, for example, just the destruction of our computer systems that control record-keeping for hospitals for municipal offices, for the distribution of energy, for government control, that kind of incidental stuff. Electronic attacks are the wave of the future. They have already cost corporate interests and government groups (tax dollars) quite a lot in emergency responses to firm up security once it has been breached.

And it has. Not only in other countries like the United States and Europe, but Canada as well. Industrial espionage and government infiltration have occurred and will doubtless continue to occur. The threats come from other, foreign governments with malicious intentions of discovering for themselves diplomatic initiatives or trade secrets or future plans whose pre-knowledge might benefit them.

Foreign hackers are just as clever as our own IT security experts, just as ingenious, enterprising, security-conscious and professionally capable. Hackers send emails to high-ranking departmental officials with a link to a web page infected with a sophisticated viral agent. Which opens a pathway in government networks to install spy malware. Infected PDF files, opened by the unaware, unleash malicious code to obtain government secrets.

Of attacks reported in 2011, 42% occurred as a result of employees losing government-issued laptops or mobile devices. People have a propensity to be quite casual about the security of expensive and important information tools if they haven't a personal interest in their security; i.e., paid for them out of their own pockets.

Government has been warned that 42% of data breaches within government represent insiders leaking data. The opening of email attachments by employees who don't acknowledge how dangerous they can be are a cause of common attack methods. Governments and private organizations must educate employees about phishing and other methods of attack. And the Government of Canada will have to commit to a program of cyber protection.

So it's just as well that Canada is preparing to spend a half-billion to access a constellation of U.S. airforce satellites designed to fend off foreign cyber attacks. Global Mercury, Canada's $477-million portion of the Wideband Global Satcom network will be activated with the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the Department of National Defence and the U.S. air force.

It's a good start. "Our global security interests are not all protected by planes, ships and tanks. Some of the great threats are invisible, but real." Defence Minister Peter MacKay.