The documents — part of a presentation to the chief information officer on Monday — state control of the government’s IT “incident management plan” was too complex, with overlapping roles and unclear “accountabilities.”
The plan is not aligned with the larger Federal Emergency Response Plan, which co-ordinates response efforts between different levels of government and does not include a consideration of “wide-spread government cyber (incidents).”
The documents also suggest a number of departments and agencies are not using the government’s secure network, but are using “unauthorized” Internet connections to conduct their business. It’s not clear how many government institutions are using unauthorized connections.
“In order to maximize protection of (government) systems and information, all corporate Internet access points . . . should be migrated to (the secured network) by end of fiscal year,” the presentation reads, underlining the proposed timeline for emphasis.
The rest of the article is very eye opening and scary at the same time. Seeing as the Government Of Canada has all sorts of info at its fingertips that hackers of all sorts would want, you’d think that they’d take cyber security far more seriously. But clearly that is in question. What’s also scary is that this is not the first time the Government has been told about this:
“Either this is an almost unsolvable problem, or the government has a pretty blasé approach to it,” Liberal deputy leader Ralph Goodale said Wednesday.
“(Prime Minister Stephen) Harper has constantly said don’t worry, Canadians are safe. That’s been his line . . . . This rhetoric is one thing, about getting tough and doing everything they can and protecting Canadians against cyber threats and so forth, but they don’t seem to quite get around to it.”
Goodale pointed to the 2012 report from the auditor general, which found that despite the “lessons learned” exercises in the wake of January 2011 hacks to government systems — also allegedly connected to China — federal systems remained vulnerable.
The fact that the Auditor General raised this as an issue two years ago and we’re still here talking about it is not good. I think it’s time that the Government start giving Canadians answers about why cyber threats aren’t being taken seriously by them.
Canadian Government Warned About Vulnerability To Hackers: Toronto Star
This year, the Government Of Canada has had to deal with a hack from Chinese hackers, and the heartbleed nightmare which forced them to shut down the website that allowed Canadians to file their taxes online. In the wake of those incidents, The Toronto Star is reporting that they were warned that “some departments and agencies lack sufficient network security and that Ottawa needs a more coherent plan to address large-scale cyber attacks”:
The documents — part of a presentation to the chief information officer on Monday — state control of the government’s IT “incident management plan” was too complex, with overlapping roles and unclear “accountabilities.”
The plan is not aligned with the larger Federal Emergency Response Plan, which co-ordinates response efforts between different levels of government and does not include a consideration of “wide-spread government cyber (incidents).”
The documents also suggest a number of departments and agencies are not using the government’s secure network, but are using “unauthorized” Internet connections to conduct their business. It’s not clear how many government institutions are using unauthorized connections.
“In order to maximize protection of (government) systems and information, all corporate Internet access points . . . should be migrated to (the secured network) by end of fiscal year,” the presentation reads, underlining the proposed timeline for emphasis.
The rest of the article is very eye opening and scary at the same time. Seeing as the Government Of Canada has all sorts of info at its fingertips that hackers of all sorts would want, you’d think that they’d take cyber security far more seriously. But clearly that is in question. What’s also scary is that this is not the first time the Government has been told about this:
“Either this is an almost unsolvable problem, or the government has a pretty blasé approach to it,” Liberal deputy leader Ralph Goodale said Wednesday.
“(Prime Minister Stephen) Harper has constantly said don’t worry, Canadians are safe. That’s been his line . . . . This rhetoric is one thing, about getting tough and doing everything they can and protecting Canadians against cyber threats and so forth, but they don’t seem to quite get around to it.”
Goodale pointed to the 2012 report from the auditor general, which found that despite the “lessons learned” exercises in the wake of January 2011 hacks to government systems — also allegedly connected to China — federal systems remained vulnerable.
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