The Canadian Cyber Incident Response Centre (CCIRC) was developed by Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada (PSEPC) to anticipate and deal with cyberthreats. Zuwena Robidas of PSEPC offers this primer:
What it does: CCIRC supplies PSEPC’s operational capacity to meet its departmental cybersecurity mandate. The Centre aims to leverage existing capacities across the federal government and Canada as a whole, to ensure a co-ordinated and timely response to cybersecurity incidents across the country.
Services offered: CCIRC services are offered 24/7 to federal government departments, provinces and territories and critical infrastructure owners and operators. They include:
• Co-ordination and support for incident response efforts;
• Monitoring and analysis of the cyber risk environment (threats and vulnerabilities);
• Information technology security-related technical advice, and
• National capacity building (standards, best practices, awareness and education).
Warnings: The CCIRC does not have a specific cyber threat level alert system. The warning system developed by the Government Operations Centre issues warnings to members of government and the private sector in Canada to notify them of a significant all-hazard threat that is emerging, imminent or occurring. 068069
– Williams
