Mr. Speaker, the Government of Canada takes the security of its networks very seriously. Cybersecurity is a foundation for Canada’s future, for our digital economy, personal safety, national prosperity and competitiveness.
As part of the Communications Security Establishment, or CSE, the Canadian centre for cybersecurity, or the cyber centre, is Canada’s authority on cybersecurity. CSE, including its cyber centre, provides a defence that is unparalleled in Canada.
Every day, CSE uses its sophisticated cyber and technical expertise to help monitor, detect and investigate threats against Canada’s information systems and networks, and to take active measures to address them.
On an ongoing basis the cyber centre shares actionable threat intelligence derived from Government of Canada cyber-attacks with Canadian critical infrastructure to help protect these systems of importance.
The definition of “cyber-attack” is highly variable. CSE uses the term “malicious cyber attempts” to capture unsuccessful attempts to identify vulnerabilities and penetrate a system. CSE does not track disaggregated statistics regarding the blocking of malicious cyber attempts on government servers or websites. On any given day, CSE’s defensive systems can block anywhere from three to five billion events targeting the Government of Canada’s networks, though the daily number can be as high as seven billion.
The cyber centre employs a cyber-defence system that blocks or otherwise mitigates malicious cyber attempts at multiple layers. As such, the cyber centre is unable to provide statistics that would respond to this question. Most malicious cyber attempts directed at Government of Canada networks are ultimately mitigated before they can have a significant impact.
The Government of Canada has publicly disclosed cyber-events when appropriate. For reasons of national security and to protect operational integrity, CSE cannot provide further information.