The annual cost of dealing with natural disasters attributable to extreme weather now averages $1.9 billion or nearly five times as much as a decade ago, and Natural Resources Canada says current efforts to address the impact on infrastructure are “insufficient in the face of rapidly accumulating social and economic losses” and “the window to reduce increasingly severe impacts is rapidly closing.” [node:read-more:link]
The U.S. Justice Department said June 7 that it had recovered much of the roughly $4.4-million Bitcoin ransom paid last month to Russian hackers who shut down the company’s control systems. A department team is reported to have seized some $2.3 million in cryptocurrency by hijacking the Darkside Network’s Bitcoin wallet. [node:read-more:link]
The cost to the federal government of dealing with natural disasters would indicate that Canada continues to be seriously affected by climate change. Public Safety Canada says the amount was $309.5 million in the 2018-2019 fiscal year compared with $494.9 million a year earlier and $485.8 million in 2016-2017. The average in the five previous years was $360 million, which was triple the average in the five years before that. [node:read-more:link]
The RCMP is investigating reports by a pulp-and-paper company in Richmond, B.C., that its systems have been infiltrated by malware. A spokesperson for Paper Excellence Canada Holdings Corp. says communications and some production capability have been affected. [node:read-more:link]
Four days into a shutdown of nearly half of the U.S. east coast petroleum supply due to a ransomware cyberattack, the federal government and Colonial Pipeline were still working today to secure the network. The has disrupted fuel supply, triggering retail sales restrictions and pushing benchmark gasoline prices to a three-year high. [node:read-more:link]
An emergency Ontario-wide alert that woke thousands to warnings of an unspecified “incident” at the Pickering nuclear station near Toronto 12 January was erroneously sent out during a training exercise. Solicitor General Sylvia Jones says there was no danger to the public or the environment. [node:read-more:link]
An emergency Ontario-wide alert that woke thousands to warnings of an unspecified “incident” at the Pickering nuclear station near Toronto 12 January was erroneously sent out during a training exercise. Solicitor General Sylvia Jones says there was no danger to the public or the environment. [node:read-more:link]
Growing reliance on the public cloud as a core element of public- and private-sector transition to an increasingly digital world worries Eric Trexler, vice-president of global governments and critical infrastructure at Texas-based Forcepoint, a company partly owned by Raytheon which develops and markets cybersecurity software. While the trend is expected to give agencies more data storage flexibility, he says it also amounts to an “attractive bullseye” for cyberattackers. [node:read-more:link]
The Dutch government has no plans to lift a COVID-19 curfew after several days of often violent protests an looting in several cities. More than 180 persons described as “scum” by Finance Minister Wopke Hoekstra have been arrested. [node:read-more:link]
An unsuccessful attempt to hack into a Florida city’s water supply is seen as a wake-up call for the U.S. government to assess its protection of critical infrastructure. Officials in the city of Oldsmar and surrounding county say a “bad actor” managed to increase sodium hydroxide levels to potentially dangerous levels but that the hack was intercepted within a few minutes. Local authorities said that “everyone should be on notice.” [node:read-more:link]
Alberta MP Shannon Stubbs remains the Conservatives’ public safety and emergency preparedness critic in the House of Commons after Opposition Leader Erin O’Toole shuffled his roster of critics today. Ontario MP Michel Chong remains foreign affairs critic. The shadow cabinet shuffle affected about a dozen caucus members, the most significant being O’Toole’s decision to reassign Ottawa-area MP Pierre Poilievre from his role as finance critic to a jobs-and-industry role. Poilievre is succeeded by B.C. MP Ed Fast. [node:read-more:link]
Power utilities’ increasing reliance on monitoring and control technologies has meant that the U.S. electricity distribution network has become more vulnerable to cyber attacks, according to the Government Accountability Office. It says that although the Department of Energy is working on a cybersecurity strategy, it has focused more on generation and transmission systems. [node:read-more:link]
A 100-day initiative designed to protect electrical infrastructure against cyberattacks is being rolled out by the U.S. government. It includes “aggressive but achievable milestones” to help the mostly private-sector industry to modernize its security and enhance detection, mitigation and forensic capabilities. [node:read-more:link]
The Royal Navy will acquire a new ship designed to protect strategically-vulnerable submarine cables which carry most of the world’s communications. With a crew of 15 and expected to enter service in 2024 in British and international waters, the Multi Role Ocean Surveillance ship would be “be able to support with other defence tasks, including exercises and operations in the Arctic which will become an increasingly contested area.” [node:read-more:link]
(2014 update) Our understanding of climate change impacts and adaptation has improved, both as a result of new research and through experience. Led by Natural Resources Canada, the development of this report involved over 90 authors and 115 expert reviewers. [node:read-more:link]
