Matthews: How should Canada deal with the threat posed by cyberattacks from abroad?

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19 October, 2012
By: Kyle Matthews
Executive director, Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies

With the Government of Canada’s announcement that it will be committing $155 million to strengthen the Canadian Cyber Incident Response Centre, it seems like we are moving in the right direction. However, given that Canada is one of the most “digitally” advanced countries in the world, meaning our economy would take a severe hit if a major cyber-attack was launched against us, it would be wise to invest more financial resources to tackle this threat. $30 million per year is a start but we should be more ambitious. It would also be useful (and perhaps effective) if Ottawa would name the countries where known cyber-attacks targeting the Canadian government, businesses, and private citizens originated from.

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