Protection measures for critical infrastructures such as the financial sectors, power grids and transportation networks against cyberattacks are presently grossly inadequate. Hostile nation states and criminal organizations are stealing billions of dollars’ worth of financial assets and intellectual property every year. Furthermore, the risks of outright attacks against economic interests with actual harm to citizens are only too real.
Canada is especially vulnerable given its high reliance on the Internet for economic activities and its military infrastructure. The overall movement and general swing in direction toward cloud-based solutions, driven by cost savings with little regard toward security, only compound more threats against national interests and are setting the stage for the perfect cyberstorm.
Canadian cyberdefences’ mixed results toward accomplishing their goals stem from current protection strategies that are still structured on a traditional or hierarchical model. With such outdated strategies, control is characterized by “directives”, leadership by “position” and decision-making by “line function”. Executives and managers in those environments are hindered by status quo processes that restrict their sharing of vital information. The men and women in the front line of cyberdefences have to wait until some of that information is pushed down to them before they can react. Those cyberwarriors are forced to operate in constrained environments that impair their ability to anticipate cyberthreats and effectively respond to cyberattacks, with potentially tragic consequences.
A new strategy is in order. MWCO is prompting agencies at all levels of government and private industries to join together in a national cybersecurity program founded on agile cyberdefences.
As a forward-looking Canadian business, MWCO has developed an agile cybersecurity program that exploits the benefits of organizational agility: robustness, flexibility, resilience, responsiveness, innovation, and adaptation. Across enterprises who adopt agile cyberdefences, cyberwarriors display a common understanding of the goals of a joint cybersecurity program and operate at a heightened level of autonomous cooperation. Thanks to shared situational awareness among organizations throughout the country, the collective formed by self-synchronized cyberwarriors triggers a torrential flow of value-adding interactions, overpowering cyberattacks before they cause harm.
“In Canada, as elsewhere in the developed world, cyber-security is becoming more and more an important component of national defense and infrastructure protection. Unquestionably, attacks are becoming more focused and sophisticated, better planned and resourced. There will be no easy solution– no quick victory – in this cyber cold war. Rather, research, new and disruptive technologies, education and awareness training, innovative approaches to threat identification, more effective communication and information flow, smarter organizations and better designed systems (security baked in not added on) will all contribute to making our society safer from those who would attack its technological heart.”
Jerrard Gaertner, CA•CISA/IT, CGEIT, CISSP, CIPP/IT, I.S.P., ITCP, CFI
Director, Technology Assurance Services, Soberman LLP
Vice-President, Canadian Information Processing Society
The national experts mustered by MWCO are authorities in cybersecurity infostructures, network-centric collaboration technologies and quantitative risk analyses. They work together to deploy the components of a national cybersecurity program with federal, provincial and municipal government agencies, and industries such as defence, healthcare, finance, communications, manufacturing, and technology.
Canadian government departments and private corporations seeking to take a leap forward toward the protection of their Internet-based assets can find more information about MWCO’s National Cybersecurity Program at www.mwco.ca.
About MWCO
MWCO is a proud Canadian owned company and a leading provider of IT technical services and security solutions to Canada’s national defence, security and public safety communities for over 15 years.
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