Investigation ongoing after Global Affairs Canada hit by cyber attack

Users’ and employees’ personal information has been compromised after a “malicious” cyber-attack against Global Affairs Canada (GAC).

“Early results indicate there has been a data breach and that there has been unauthorized access to personal information of users, including employees,” GAC stated in an email to Daily Hive. “The Department is contacting those affected with mitigation measures to ensure that sensitive and personal information is secure.”

GAC manages diplomatic relations, promotes international trade, and provides consular assistance. It is currently “closely monitoring the situation” and investigating the incident.

On January 24, the department activated a “partial outage,” shutting down systems after discovering “malicious cyber activity.” As a result, the outage still affects remote access to GAC’s network nationwide.

The department reported the incident to Canada’s Office of the Privacy Commissioner. GAC is now working with IT partners such as Shared Services Canada and the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security “to restore full connectivity.”

For now, employees on-site can access the system in GAC buildings, while remote workers “have been provided with workarounds to ensure they remain operational.”

“The Government of Canada deals with ongoing and persistent cyber risks and threats every day,” reads the statement. “Given its profile, Global Affairs Canada takes a proactive approach and employs a variety of security monitoring measures to detect and address potential risks.”

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