The IT Nerd

At the NKST IAM Conference in Toronto today, the Canadian Cybersecurity Network released its State of Cybersecurity in Canada 2026 report, signalling a fundamental shift in how cyber risk must be understood nationwide. The report finds that cybersecurity can no longer be viewed solely as a technical issue. It has become a core economic and national stability imperative, with digital trust now underpinning financial systems, public services, and the country’s competitiveness.

The 2026 State of Cybersecurity Report shows Canada facing rising digital risk as AI automation and interconnected systems reshape how attacks occur and how trust breaks down. Cybersecurity is no longer an IT issue. It is a leadership resilience and economic competitiveness challenge that will define how Canada protects critical systems recovers from disruption and maintains confidence in the digital age.

The 2026 findings show that Canada remains resilient, supported by strong talent, world-class research institutions, and a growing cybersecurity ecosystem. However, the report also highlights uneven maturity across the economy, particularly among small and mid-sized organizations, operational technology environments, identity verification practices, and crisis readiness. With attacks increasingly targeting trust, identity, and human decision-making rather than infrastructure alone, these gaps now represent systemic risk.

A central theme of the report is the erosion of traditional trust signals. Deepfakes, voice cloning, and AI driven social engineering now enable attackers to convincingly impersonate executives, employees, and institutions. As identity becomes the most targeted attack surface, purely technical defenses are no longer adequate. Verification must increasingly occur at the moment of action, not after harm has already occurred.

The report also shows that cyber incidents have shifted from isolated security events to full-scale business crises. Regulatory scrutiny, media exposure, and financial fallout now unfold alongside technical response efforts. Yet many organizations remain unprepared to operate under this pressure, even when formal response plans exist on paper.

Another key finding is the growing convergence of cybersecurity, insurance, and governance. Cyber insurers are emerging as active participants in prevention, shaping baseline security expectations and elevating board-level accountability. This dynamic is raising national cyber hygiene standards while exposing maturity gaps that can no longer be ignored.

Looking ahead, the report identifies agentic artificial intelligence and post quantum cryptography as defining forces in the next phase of Canada’s cyber posture. Autonomous systems are accelerating both offensive and defensive activity, compressing decision timelines beyond human response. At the same time, data harvested today may be decrypted in the future if quantum readiness lags.

The cover image of the report reflects this moment. A forward-facing Canadian moose stands alert and resolute, symbolizing a nation that is grounded, strong, and prepared to defend its systems, economy, and public trust in an increasingly contested digital environment.

Alongside the national report, the Canadian Cybersecurity Network is launching CCN Insights, a new intelligence series focused on emerging risks shaping digital trust. The first release, When AI Acts: Securing Autonomous Systems at Machine Speed, examines how autonomous AI, deepfakes, and synthetic identity are redefining enterprise risk. It is being unveiled this week at the IAM Conference.

State of Cybersecurity in Canada 2026 is designed to provide boards, executives, policymakers, and security leaders with a clear assessment of where Canada stands today, and the priority actions required to strengthen national resilience in the years ahead. Get the report here.

Late last week, the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security shared a warning stating that hacktivists are targeting critical infrastructure through internet-exposed industrial control systems (ICS).

In recent weeks, the Cyber Centre and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police have received multiple reports of incidents involving internet-accessible ICS. One incident affected a water facility, tampering with water pressure values and resulting in degraded service for its community. Another involved a Canadian oil and gas company, where an Automated Tank Gauge (ATG) was manipulated, triggering false alarms. A third one involved a grain drying silo on a Canadian farm, where temperature and humidity levels were manipulated, resulting in potentially unsafe conditions if not caught on time.

While individual organizations may not be direct targets of adversaries, they may become victims of opportunity as hacktivists are increasingly exploiting internet-accessible ICS devices to gain media attention, discredit organizations, and undermine Canada’s reputation.

Exposed ICS components, including Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs), Remote Terminal Units (RTUs), Human-Machine Interfaces (HMIs), Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems, Safety Instrumented Systems (SIS), Building Management Systems (BMS), and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) devices, pose significant risks to organizations, their clients, and the broader Canadian public.

 Grayson Milbourne, Security Intelligence Director, OpenText Cybersecurity had this to say:

“The Cyber Centre’s alert underscores a cross-border reality: both Canadian and U.S. critical infrastructure operators are connecting legacy industrial control systems to the internet without the right access safeguards. These systems weren’t designed with modern authentication in mind, and that’s exactly where attackers are getting in.

Cybersecurity for critical infrastructure has to start with identity. When every user, device, and connection is verified, organizations can limit who touches sensitive systems and quickly spot when something’s wrong. That means implementing strong identity and access management, continuous monitoring, and strict network segmentation to close the gaps hacktivists exploit.”

This warning illustrates the fact that critical infrastructure needs to move to a place where it isn’t a target for threat actors. Right now critical infrastructure is low hanging fruit for threat actors. And that isn’t a good place to be as it can have catastrophic results for all of us.

About 45 minutes ago I started getting calls from numerous clients about not being able to get email or surf the Internet. On top of that my wife texted me to say that our Internet was out. I knew that wasn’t a good sign and a quick look at Down Detector confirmed what I was thinking:

Clearly numerous ISP’s including Rogers, Cogeco, Bell, Ebox, and Distributel have issues at the moment. On top of that, I note that Scotiabank is down as well. From what I can tell this outage covers the Greater Toronto Area and beyond. And clearly Bell and related companies are affect more than others. I’ll be keeping an eye on this as clearly this is very serious and wide spread.

UPDATE: This outage apparently covers Ontario and Quebec. So this is big.

UPDATE #2: This outage seems to be resolved as of roughly 10AM EST.

With the threat of Trump dropping his ill advised tariffs on Canada coming at any time, I’ve been highlighting ways that you can find out if the products that you buy are Canadian or supports Canadian businesses.

Today’s app that will help you with that is called Check The Label. The developers have an app for iOS and Android, as well as an option that allows you to use the camera in your computer to point a barcode at the camera in order to scan it. Then you’ll get information as to where the product was made. Personally, the smartphone app is the way to go as you always have your smartphone on you, which means you can be in a grocery store and use it to make the correct purchasing decisions. Which are ones that avoid US products and the tariffs that come with them.

If you have any other apps that you’ve used to shop smarter, post a comment and let me know and I will share them with everyone.

After posting a story about this browser extension, I’ve had a reader tip me off to Maple Scan. This is an app that when you use it to scan a product using your camera, it will tell you if the product is Canadian or supports Canadian businesses. But it also does more:

• If a product isn’t fully Canadian, it will suggest local alternatives.
• It will tell you if imported products include Trumps stupid tariffs or some other special tax.

The app is available for iOS and Android. Though the latter is currently being beta tested. I tested this on my iPhone 14 Pro with several products from coca powder to pens. And while it does take about a minute to come back with results, it does what it says it will do. So if you’re a proud Canadian who wants to support Canadian businesses, there’s now an app for that.

Car theft in many parts of Canada are completely out of control. And to combat this, The Canadian Government has come out with the bright idea of banning the tools that thieves use to steal cars. That includes the Flipper Zero which is a penetration testing tool that has been around for years. It uses  multiple protocols, including RFID, radio, NFC, infrared, and Bluetooth to allow someone to debug hardware or do penetration testing. According to the Canadian Government, this tool is the cause for the surge in car thefts.

You can see here that Flipper Zero isn’t happy with this decision. But the thing is that from my research, I can find lots of ways that a Flipper Zero can be used to steal cars. And I think tools like this are a problem and need some degree of regulation. But there are other ways of stealing cars. Carjackings have become commonplace here in Toronto. Take this example, or this example. Both in the last week. Then there’s the trend of home invasions where criminals break into homes and terrorize residents to steal cars. Such as this recent example. I suspect that carjackings and home invasions have become more prevalent because the preferred method of stealing cars which is a relay attack is becoming less and less effective because of car owners are putting their car key fobs in Faraday cages and keeping them in areas of their homes that make relay attacks less possible. Plus there’s the fact that car companies who are aware of this trend are trying to make their cars harder to steal. Because being known as a car brand that has a theft problem is bad for business. Just ask Hyundai and Kia who have a huge problem with thefts related to “The Kia Boyz” TikTok trend.

Any solution for car theft in Canada needs to be more than just banning stuff. Sure, regulate the tech that is behind these thefts. But carjackings and home invasions are issues that are solved by other means. Like longer jail sentences for example. And there’s the fact that it is disgustingly easy for car thieves to export cars from Canada via Canada’s ports. Something that the Canadian Government kind of admitted and has finally decided to do something about. Fact is that there’s no one solution to this problem, and those in charge here in Canada need to figure that out and take action that means something rather than just picking on tech and calling it a day.