Bloomberg has received and reported on a report (see link below) that suggests the Government sees itself as ill-prepared to protect itself from a range of Cyber-threats.
The memo suggests that “the problem is more widespread than previously thought,” and is “increasingly recognized as impacting not just national security, but also public safety and economic prosperity through growing cyber crime and loss of intellectual property.”
There is a link drawn to the failure of Nortel, once the Canada’s largest telecom manufacturer, which was a victim of sustained industrial espionage over much of the 2000s, until it eventually failed. The source of the penetrations was tracked to China, but Nortel received little help at the time from any Canadian Government agency. CSIS, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service got involved in 2009, when Nortel filed for bankruptcy.
The Federal Government’s Cyber Security Strategy was announced in October 2010 (click here to see it). It recognizes, perhaps informed by the Nortel incident, that cyber security issues touch on a broad range of activities.
There released report suggests there are complex governance issues in the Canadian Government’s own cyber security management.
IT Security is a complex area. It requires clear governance certainly, a clear-headed understanding of the risks, but also a response directly in proportion to the value of the assets worth protecting. When your assets are worth billions, your defences should be very high.
As companies grow and evolve, this is an area that needs to be continuously re-evaluated.