Canada not so innocent in cybercrime

Howard Solomon

11 years ago

(Graphic from Shutterstock)

Canadians like to think of themselves as the do-gooders of the world who join United Nations peacekeeping missions and are forced to protect their IT systems from the bad guys in Russia, North Korea and Nigeria.

But at the SC Congress conference in Toronto on Tuesday, security vendor Websense Inc. presented its latest study listing this country as an important – if inadvertent – host of cyberthreats.

Our sister publication ITBusiness.ca has a report on Websense’s presentation to the conference (see below), which includes advice from a company official.

Earlier this year we wrote about Websense’s international threat report (click here) from which it took its Canadian numbers.

The company said foreign companies and governments are increasingly setting up virtual bases in Canada for corporate espionage attacks.

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Ironically – or logically – its Canada’s trustworthy reputation that has made it a target.

Canada ranks 10^th on a list of countries that hosted malware in Q1 (the top four were the U.S., Russia, Germany and China). Not only have Canada’s cybercrime figures increased since last year, some of the jumps are alarming: For example, malware hosting on all Canadian Web sites has increased 25 per cent. The number of command and control servers here distributing malware soared 83 per cent.

What this means is more than ever IT departments in service providers as well as in organizations have to crack down on their risk assessments to ensure their servers aren’t responsible for this outbreak.

To get a copy of the Websense report click here

To read the the ITBusiness story click here.