Canadian Government Websites Taken Down Due To Heartbleed
It started with the Canada Revenue Agency website, now other Canadian Government websites have shut down. The reason? The heartbleed bug. Here’s the details from the Toronto Star:
The directive issued late Thursday calls this a precautionary measure until the “appropriate security patches are in place and tested” but did not indicate how many departments are involved.
The government‘s Chief Information Officer says in a statement issued through the Treasury Board that while disruptive, ‘‘this is the best course of action to protect the privacy of Canadians.‘‘
The statement adds that until measures are applied, ”Canadians will be unable to access certain Government of Canada websites.”
My question is that this bug was disclosed on Monday. However, it appears that it has taken until Thursday for the Canadian Government to act. If we assume that this bug is being exploited for nefarious means, why were these sites not shut down sooner? It’s a reasonable question that someone inside the Canadian Government needs to answer. I hope that someone asks the question and that we get an answer that is complete and robust.
March 13, 2017 at 8:28 am
[…] a few years back. That led to a 19 year old being put in the clink because of it. But not before other Canadian Government websites had to be taken down to fix the issue and personal data was […]