As the number of successful pandemic-related scams continues to grow online, Canada’s cyber spy agency is helping to launch a new — and free — threat-blocking tool for all Canadians to use.
This first-of-its-kind initiative is getting tentative applause in cyber security circles, but experts caution the initiative needs to be closely watched to make sure it doesn’t cross any red lines.
The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA, the not-for-profit agency that manages the .ca internet domain) and the Communications Security Establishment, Canada’s foreign signals intelligence agency, teamed up on the CIRA Canadian Shield — a protected domain name system (DNS) service that prevents Canadians from connecting to malicious websites that might infect their devices and steal their personal information.
CIRA is providing the threat blocking technology while the CSE’s Canadian Centre for Cyber Security is offering its threat intelligence services — basically a who’s-who list of every bad actor roaming the web.
“For any piece of malicious software to get to you, 90 per cent of it relies on knowing the address book of the internet,” said Scott Jones, head of the cyber security centre.
(Canadian Centre for Cyber Security)
“What we do is when we know it’s malicious, CIRA makes sure that you don’t get told to go to the bad address. It stops you from getting to the bad place.”
The two agencies were working on the project long before the pandemic struck, said Jones, but the current global emergency makes it more relevant because large numbers of Canadians are now working from home, often on unsecured networks or devices.
“We’re not just feeding in information about malicious attacks that are COVID-related. We’re feeding in anything we see from any criminal activity that’s targeting the government, or that we’re getting made aware of. Any state-sponsored type activity as well that we can block, we’re putting it in there,” he said.
“Basically, anything we’re using to defend the government of Canada we’re now making available for all Canadians, so that they can protect themselves.”
Project should be audited for censorship: researcher
Christopher Parsons, a senior research associate at the Citizen Lab through the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, said the electronic spy agency has made progress in stepping out of the shadows.
“This represents to my eye a continuation of that effort, to take what is often sort of secret or classified information, turn it into a way that could be made publicly available and then trying to make it more useful to Canadians,” he said.
(Canadian Centre for Cyber Security)
Parsons said that even if all those involved in the project are driven by good intentions, it should be audited and tested to make sure it’s not accidentally blocking Canadians from accessing safe sites.
“It’ll be important to assess and evaluate and ensure that the items that are being provided to CIRA from the government are in fact appropriate to block,” he said.
“I don’t think that it’s likely that the cyber centre is, you know, going to secretly use this to build a censorship networking path. I truly cannot see that happening, but mistakes could happen.”
Jones stressed the agency is collecting only anonymized statistics about how frequently the Canadian Shield blocked web addresses on its threat list.
“Nothing about Canadians as individual users. We get nothing about their usage patterns,” he said.
While the CSE collects a wide array of foreign communications related to Canada’s interests — including phone calls and emails — its mandate restricts its ability to collect data on Canadians. Given the sensitive nature of its activities, it’s monitored by an independent watchdog group — which has reprimanded the agency over its metadata collection practices in the past.
As the Canadian operator of the threat-blocker, CIRA would have to comply with Canadian privacy laws, including the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act.
Wesley Wark, a University of Ottawa security and intelligence expert, said the project could do a lot of good — but attention should still be paid to the anonymized data it collects.
“The CIRA cyber shield is a new public initiative, so it certainly deserves scrutiny,” he said.
“Anonymization might be the most sensitive issue. [Data] anonymization is a tricky business, as CSE itself knows. It can fail and if it did, it might have impacts on privacy.
“If the Canadian Shield system functions properly, it could make a significant contribution to internet security while at the same time protecting privacy.”
CIRA spokesperson Spencer Callaghan said the authority has committed to a full annual privacy audit by a third-party auditor.
The rollout comes as the cyber agency is reporting more successful attempts at online fraud linked to the pandemic.
Jones said the agency has helped to take down more than 2,000 fraudulent sites and email addresses designed specifically for malicious cyber activity since the crisis began.
Some fraudsters have tried to fool people into clicking on malicious links promising Canada emergency response benefit (CERB) payments, while others have tried to lure Canadians with promises of personal protective equipment, treatments or cures.
“Not necessarily a rise in activity, but certainly a switch to the use of COVID-related themes as lures, which are very enticing for Canadians,” said Jones.
“The same level of activity, but more successful activity because of the nature of the lure.”
TOKYO (AP) — Japanese technology group SoftBank swung back to profitability in the July-September quarter, boosted by positive results in its Vision Fund investments.
Tokyo-based SoftBank Group Corp. reported Tuesday a fiscal second quarter profit of nearly 1.18 trillion yen ($7.7 billion), compared with a 931 billion yen loss in the year-earlier period.
Quarterly sales edged up about 6% to nearly 1.77 trillion yen ($11.5 billion).
SoftBank credited income from royalties and licensing related to its holdings in Arm, a computer chip-designing company, whose business spans smartphones, data centers, networking equipment, automotive, consumer electronic devices, and AI applications.
The results were also helped by the absence of losses related to SoftBank’s investment in office-space sharing venture WeWork, which hit the previous fiscal year.
WeWork, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023, emerged from Chapter 11 in June.
SoftBank has benefitted in recent months from rising share prices in some investment, such as U.S.-based e-commerce company Coupang, Chinese mobility provider DiDi Global and Bytedance, the Chinese developer of TikTok.
SoftBank’s financial results tend to swing wildly, partly because of its sprawling investment portfolio that includes search engine Yahoo, Chinese retailer Alibaba, and artificial intelligence company Nvidia.
SoftBank makes investments in a variety of companies that it groups together in a series of Vision Funds.
The company’s founder, Masayoshi Son, is a pioneer in technology investment in Japan. SoftBank Group does not give earnings forecasts.
Shopify Inc. executives brushed off concerns that incoming U.S. President Donald Trump will be a major detriment to many of the company’s merchants.
“There’s nothing in what we’ve heard from Trump, nor would there have been anything from (Democratic candidate) Kamala (Harris), which we think impacts the overall state of new business formation and entrepreneurship,” Shopify’s chief financial officer Jeff Hoffmeister told analysts on a call Tuesday.
“We still feel really good about all the merchants out there, all the entrepreneurs that want to start new businesses and that’s obviously not going to change with the administration.”
Hoffmeister’s comments come a week after Trump, a Republican businessman, trounced Harris in an election that will soon return him to the Oval Office.
On the campaign trail, he threatened to impose tariffs of 60 per cent on imports from China and roughly 10 per cent to 20 per cent on goods from all other countries.
If the president-elect makes good on the promise, many worry the cost of operating will soar for companies, including customers of Shopify, which sells e-commerce software to small businesses but also brands as big as Kylie Cosmetics and Victoria’s Secret.
These merchants may feel they have no choice but to pass on the increases to customers, perhaps sparking more inflation.
If Trump’s tariffs do come to fruition, Shopify’s president Harley Finkelstein pointed out China is “not a huge area” for Shopify.
However, “we can’t anticipate what every presidential administration is going to do,” he cautioned.
He likened the uncertainty facing the business community to the COVID-19 pandemic where Shopify had to help companies migrate online.
“Our job is no matter what comes the way of our merchants, we provide them with tools and service and support for them to navigate it really well,” he said.
Finkelstein was questioned about the forthcoming U.S. leadership change on a call meant to delve into Shopify’s latest earnings, which sent shares soaring 27 per cent to $158.63 shortly after Tuesday’s market open.
The Ottawa-based company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, reported US$828 million in net income for its third quarter, up from US$718 million in the same quarter last year, as its revenue rose 26 per cent.
Revenue for the period ended Sept. 30 totalled US$2.16 billion, up from US$1.71 billion a year earlier.
Subscription solutions revenue reached US$610 million, up from US$486 million in the same quarter last year.
Merchant solutions revenue amounted to US$1.55 billion, up from US$1.23 billion.
Shopify’s net income excluding the impact of equity investments totalled US$344 million for the quarter, up from US$173 million in the same quarter last year.
Daniel Chan, a TD Cowen analyst, said the results show Shopify has a leadership position in the e-commerce world and “a continued ability to gain market share.”
In its outlook for its fourth quarter of 2024, the company said it expects revenue to grow at a mid-to-high-twenties percentage rate on a year-over-year basis.
“Q4 guidance suggests Shopify will finish the year strong, with better-than-expected revenue growth and operating margin,” Chan pointed out in a note to investors.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
TORONTO – RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust says it has cut almost 10 per cent of its staff as it deals with a slowdown in the condo market and overall pushes for greater efficiency.
The company says the cuts, which amount to around 60 employees based on its last annual filing, will mean about $9 million in restructuring charges and should translate to about $8 million in annualized cash savings.
The job cuts come as RioCan and others scale back condo development plans as the market softens, but chief executive Jonathan Gitlin says the reductions were from a companywide efficiency effort.
RioCan says it doesn’t plan to start any new construction of mixed-use properties this year and well into 2025 as it adjusts to the shifting market demand.
The company reported a net income of $96.9 million in the third quarter, up from a loss of $73.5 million last year, as it saw a $159 million boost from a favourable change in the fair value of investment properties.
RioCan reported what it says is a record-breaking 97.8 per cent occupancy rate in the quarter including retail committed occupancy of 98.6 per cent.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2024.
