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Over 11,000 Canadians Affected by Federal Cyber ​​Attack | Business | The right

DOf this number, some 5,600 were registered in transactions with the CRA. The rest had files in other federal departments, including the Department of Employment. The attacks targeted GCKey users, reaching 9,041 of the 11,200 victims. GCKey is an online tool that allows Canadians to access services such as My Account or to their account at the Department of Immigration.

At the CRA, it is assured that there will be no delay in payments for the Canadian Emergency Benefit (ECP) or other federal assistance put in place since the start of the pandemic and that the agency is managing.

“We have (put in place) controls to verify payments […], but I think there will not be a big delay in payments. It’s just to verify that the person who requested a payment is really the (right) person, ”offered Annette Butikofer, deputy commissioner at the CRA, during a press briefing in Ottawa on Monday morning.

Ms Butikofer also stressed that companies will be able to apply for wage subsidies, as planned. The first period of the enhanced form of the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy began on Monday and this online feature is available.

The CRA’s 1-800-959-8281 telephone line is also still on.

However, officials are asking Canadians not to call there to see if they are among the victims. CRA is mailing letters to affected people. For its part, the Ministry of Employment has instead reached its users by email.

All victims are urged to verify that their other personal online accounts – bank or social media accounts – have not also been reached by the cyber attack.

A first attack last week

Officials dispatched Monday morning to a press conference tried to explain why they did not raise an alert earlier than last weekend.

A first “potential problem” was noticed on August 7, explained Ms. Butikofer. Action was taken to protect the RCAF system, and then the RCMP was notified on August 11.

“We were very confident that the control was fine, but after (the events involving) GCKey, we noticed an attack on Saturday and we decided (then) to block and close our gate,” she said.

On Saturday, “there were 300,000 attacks on our system and we were no longer sure that the system was protected,” she added.

Without wanting to minimize the episode, the Treasury Board representative at the press conference pointed out that the attack reached some 9,000 people out of a potential 12 million who use GCKey and some 5,600 people out of a potential 15 million registered. at the CRA.

“This is not an attack where pirates are trying to go through the back door. They have access to the system in the same way as normal users […]. So it’s hard to notice their presence in the midst of legitimate transactions, ”noted Marc Brouillard, chief technology officer at the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat.

RCMP investigation

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) have launched an investigation into the cyber attacks. It is already assumed that hackers got their hands on the passwords of their Canadian victims thanks to past personal data leaks that involved banks, among others.

“It’s possible there is a link,” agreed Brouillard.

“It is often in these attacks that information is sold on the”dark web“, It is an accumulation of several (pirated information), then it would be possible that one would never be able to specify exactly the source”, he argued.

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