Earlier this year, the Toronto Public Library, the busiest lending system in North America, was hit by a crippling cyberattack that shut down its computer system for four months. For library lovers like me, it was devastating, but it was just one of several high-profile ransomware attacks over the last few years to hit Canadian institutions. Cyberattacks have recently hit LifeLabs, Indigo and SickKids hospital as well.
In an in-depth feature for Maclean’s, Caitlin Walsh Miller set out to understand why ransomware attacks are so common in Canada. The surge, she explains, is fuelled by underworld cybercrime consortiums that help lower-level criminals pull off sophisticated attacks in exchange for a portion of the ransom. Her fascinating piece explores how this diabolical system works.
She also reveals why Canadian law enforcement is especially flat-footed in its response. She says it suffers from “institutional secrecy, slowness and poor communication between the mishmash of bodies responsible for cracking down on cybercrime.” In 2018, the feds released a National Cyber Security Strategy and vowed to create a dedicated RCMP unit called the National Cybercrime Coordination Centre but, as Miller reports, it still hasn’t launched six years later.
—Sarah Fulford, editor-in-chief
