PHOTO DAVID BOILY, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
There are still efforts to be made to reduce our vulnerability to this type of attack, supports our editorialist.
Imagine that an army surrounds Quebec and threatens to attack us. Security would undoubtedly be one of the main issues in the election campaign.
Posted at 5:00 a.m.
But these threats do exist. Except that the soldiers are not posted, weapon in hand, at our borders. And they don’t want to kill us. Rather, it is cyber-hackers scattered all over the planet who demand ransoms and disrupt the functioning of our businesses and institutions.
However, the theme of cybersecurity is absent from the electoral campaign and very little discussed in the public square. For ordinary people, what happens in cyberspace remains abstract. Until the day a cyberattack hits us personally.
However, the Communications Security Establishment (CST) is categorical: cyber threats have never been as present as they are now and their authors are using increasingly sophisticated techniques.
Every day, our businesses and institutions can fall victim to a cyberattack.
Recently, Collège Montmorency employees and students learned with horror that their personal information was on the dark web.
The inconveniences, although very concerning for the victims, did not however have a major impact on the functioning of the college.
But for some institutions or companies, the consequences of a cyberattack can be much more serious.
Think of a hospital that would see its computer system or its medical devices attacked, to the point where it had to cancel vital operations and treatments.
Consider a pharmaceutical company that distributes drugs across the province. Or to a police department that ensures the safety of the population.
In all these cases, we are talking about serious consequences.
Of course, zero risk does not exist.
But there are still efforts to be made to reduce our vulnerability to this type of attack.
In the United States, where threats of cyberattacks from Russia are taken very seriously, President Joe Biden has made cybersecurity a national priority. The European Union, for its part, has adopted rules aimed at strengthening the cybersecurity of its institutions and is preparing to adopt a regulation that will oblige manufacturers of connected objects (televisions, household appliances, etc.) to better protect their devices. .
Here, our answer is more modest.
In its latest budget, Ottawa — which raises awareness through the Canadian Center for Cyber Security — allocated $875.2 million over five years to this issue. Is it enough when you know that at Google, they spend 10 billion dollars on it for the United States alone?
In Quebec, the last Girard budget provided $100 million for cybersecurity. We are awaiting the recommendations of the committee of experts set up by the Minister of Cybersecurity and Digital, Éric Caire, but we already know that the police must be better equipped in terms of cybersecurity. The final report of the Advisory Committee on Police Reality, tabled last year, recommended the establishment of a public-private partnership in this area. However, the election campaign has postponed the implementation of this committee’s recommendations.
To the complexity of this file, we must add the shortage of cybersecurity manpower. Job vacancies number in the millions around the world: people are looking for candidates specializing in science, mathematics, business, social sciences, computer science and engineering. Notice to interested parties!
During an election campaign, talking about cybersecurity pays less than promising tax cuts, a new tunnel or a new hospital.
The problem nevertheless deserves our attention.