Procedure and House Affairs Committee on April 3rd, 2012

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Okay.

I'd also ask you how you would advise Canadians in general on the use of social media. What would you advise somebody who you consider a friend—and I'm not saying that you don't consider us friends, but it might make it easier to explain—to do in a situation to best protect themselves, I guess, from these attacks?

[Robert Gordon]

On Public Safety Canada's website, we actually have some guidance for the public at large, people who are not IT, within an IT department, or within a company or a government department.

We provide that sort of advice to the public on how best to protect themselves.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Do you have any advice for us today, just off the top of your head—two bits of good advice?

[Robert Gordon]

One is making sure your firewalls are up to date. So when the company that you have your firewall with sends you an update, please update it, because that will actually defeat a significant percentage of the attacks that might otherwise go onto your system.

Another is, before clicking on an attachment that comes to you, think about it. We have a saying, “Stop, think before you click.” Is it reasonable that the person who has supposedly sent you this e-mail would send you this attachment? At times, we teach our own staff that. You could perhaps even phone the individual and ask if they sent it before you open it, and that will actually go a long way to preventing a significant number of otherwise successful attacks.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Sure.

One last bit.

My colleague, Mr. Hawn, has already alluded to this anyway. Deputy Commissioner, I guess you answered it as well. For the rest of the panel, what is the likelihood of catching people who pose threats in the 21st century? Is there a number that you have? Is it likely that they're going to be caught, or what are we looking at?

[A/Commr James Malizia]

I'm not in a position to provide you with any statistics, but what I can say is that each investigation is unique. Again, in some instances we may be in a position to identify the individuals or individual, and other times we're not.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

I guess, as you've said before, you've had successful investigations where you've caught the bad guy.

[A/Commr James Malizia]

Yes, we have.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Are there any questions? Mr. Albrecht, you have four minutes.

[Harold Albrecht, Conservative, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don't think I'll need four minutes.

I don't have a question of the witnesses, but I want to thank them for appearing today, and for their very professional responses. I do want to respond to a statement that was made by Mr. Easter a few minutes ago, when he implied that asking a minister to step down or resign is certainly not a threat. I would agree, but that's much different, Mr. Easter, than threatening to divulge private information about someone if they don't withdraw proposed legislation.

As a former minister of the Crown, I think you should be aware that threatening someone with releasing all private information that may in fact have been secured by devious means, such as hacking into personal accounts, is certainly in a totally different category than simply standing in the House and asking a minister to resign. I would hope that you would be aware of that.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joe Preston]

Okay.

I have no one else on my list, and we'll thank you for coming today.

Is there anything else for the good of the committee today?

Then I wish you all a very happy Easter, and we will see you when we return.

This meeting is adjourned.