{"id":6204,"date":"2022-09-30T16:36:44","date_gmt":"2022-09-30T20:36:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.millerthomson.com\/successful-cyber-incident-preparedness\/"},"modified":"2025-12-29T19:09:37","modified_gmt":"2025-12-30T00:09:37","slug":"successful-cyber-incident-preparedness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.millerthomson.com\/en\/insights\/cybersecurity\/successful-cyber-incident-preparedness\/","title":{"rendered":"Tactical and strategic steps for successful cyber incident preparedness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

To kick-off this year\u2019s cyber awareness month, we wanted to present an article that would look back on the past year along with our experience counseling organizations, large and small across all sectors, through the ordeal of cyberattacks, data extortion scenarios and other data security incidents. The intention of this article is to set out some of key measures that could help prevent these attacks from having devastating impacts on the victim organization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Growing importance of incident preparedness<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Ransomware attacks that now usually operate on a dual extortion model (data encryption plus data extortion), as well as other cybercrimes such as social engineering and email scams, have been rapidly increasing in Canada. The Canadian Centre for Cybersecurity reported that in the first half of 2021, ransomware attacks had increased<\/a> by 151% year over year. According to many sources, this trend seems to be continuing in 2022. It has certainly been our experience that this is the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the regulatory response to this in June of this year, Canada\u2019s Minister of Public Safety introduced Bill C-26 (alongside Bill C-27, which is aimed at updating Canada\u2019s federal private sector privacy legislation). Bill C-26 amended Canada\u2019s Telecommunications Act and introduced the Critical Cyber Systems Protection Act in an effort to bolster cyber security across federally regulated essential infrastructure (telecommunications, finance, energy and transportation sectors). These cyber security programs must implement reasonable steps in detecting and minimizing cyber security incidents, in addition to managing organizational risks, such as risks associated with the supply chain and the use of third-party products and services. While not directly applicable to other sectors, implementation of such programs is important for almost any organization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CISA, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency of the United States, currently highlights four easy steps<\/a> for anyone to take to enhance cybersecurity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is trite to say that it is not if <\/em><\/strong>a cybersecurity issue will emerge, but when<\/em><\/strong>. It is the controls and organizational preparedness that will help manage these incidents with the least amount of detriment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These measures are not a cure-all that will prevent all breaches, but they are fantastic tools to prevent severe outcomes. They seem straightforward enough, yet their implementation is far from consistent across sectors and across the country. Without organizational will, resources and knowledge, they will either not be implemented successfully or inconsistently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

CISA four \u201ceasy\u201d steps<\/h2>\n\n\n\n