The Canadian government will earmark $1 billion in its federal budget for 2018 to fight cybercrime, local news outlets have reported.
According to CBC News, the federal agencies sought the funding to beef up country’s cybersecurity infrastructure as the cybercrime as country’s several departments are facing a growing number of cybercrime issues.
The government will spend the funding to train and retain the next-generation cyber security professionals and to strengthen the cybersecurity capabilities of its army.
It is yet unclear that which departments will get the funding.
A significant portion of the funding will be also spent on the long-overdue update of the National Cyber Security Strategy, introduced in 2010 by the former Conservative government.
The revised strategy, however, won’t be the part of the budget and will be made public by Public Safety Canada later.
A significant portion of the funding will be spent on the long-overdue update of 2010’s National Cyber Security Strategy
Many experts also believe that the funding will increase “co-development” projects between the government and the private sector.
The Canadian information department will provide cyber security to the technology firms, which in turn will develop software and hardware solutions for the federal government.
Sources, speaking to CBC on the condition of anonymity, also claimed that Canadian government has also sought a separate funding to protect next year’s generation elections from foreign interference.
The Canadian authorities believe that such action would be unexpected in the light of 2016’s US Presidential Elections, which the American intelligence community says that were disrupted by Russian hackers.
Cybercrime in Canada have significantly increased over the past two to three years.
A survey conducted by Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) in December 2017 revealed that the country’s citizens are more concerned about the cyber security than they were in the previous year.
According to the study, around 45 percent of the Canadians intend to stop online shopping following a series of cyber-attacks.
Ransomware attacks are the most common type of cyber-attacks in Canada, with hackers targeting small organizations who lack technical expertise and resources to protect their networks.
A report of Canadian Chamber of Commerce’s Cyber Security in Canada recently reported small businesses account for 71 percent of the all security and data breaches in the country.
The cyber criminals are also increasingly targeting mobile devices, a survey conducted by Dimensional Research earlier this year revealed.
The study says that 24 percent of the companies’ mobile devices that are breached aren’t sure that if had experienced a cyber-attack.
