Cyberattacks put spotlight on weak Canadian laws, says cybersecurity expert

A New Brunswick cybersecurity expert says high profile data breaches at Sobeys and Indigo point to weak Canadian laws, as vulnerabilities grow against critical infrastructure.

“Our current national cybersecurity strategy is woefully out of date,” says David Shipley, CEO of Fredericton-based Beauceron Security Inc. “We are way behind our peers in the United States and Europe.”

Federal legislation are awaiting a second reading to update Canada’s cybersecurity laws. 

“We’re potentially two to three years from those laws being passed and regulations enforced,” says Shipley. “Meanwhile, things have never been this bad online.”

Shipley points to the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation as being a strong policy for Canadian lawmakers to follow.

“It gave real, meaningful teeth to regulators to rein in tech giants and other companies that were either gathering information about people without their consent, or breaching it because of a lack security,” says Shipley.

Some of the fines can amount up to 20 million Euros, or four per cent of a company’s global revenue.

“This forced companies to take privacy much more seriously,” says Shipley. “Our law of the land federally in Canada is absolutely toothless. There’s no real consequences.”Shipley says critical infrastructure in Canada is also at risk because of weak cybersecurity laws, including power grids, telecommunications, transportation and the health care IT systems.

“Until it happens it’s not real for many organizations,” says Shipley.

In Newfoundland and Labrador, a cyberattack on the province’s health care system breached thousands of personal information records in 2021. 

In Saint John, N.B., the city refused to pay nearly $17 million in Bitcoin following a ransomware attack in 2020. As a result, the city had to rebuild its IT system from the ground up. 

The federal government’s 2023-2024 National Cyber Threat Assessment says ransomware and state-sponsored cyber threats are some of Canada’s top concerns.

“This is just a preview of a pretty bleak rest of the year and a pretty bleak rest of the decade,” says Shipley. “That’s not a fun statement. And it doesn’t have to be this way.”