New Certification Program Will Help Protect Companies From Cyber Attacks
FREDERICTON – The provincial government has announced the launch of a certification program that will help protect vulnerable small- and medium-sized businesses nationwide from cyber attacks.
The Cyber Essentials Canada certification is a set of cybersecurity standards and best practices that are now available to all Canadian businesses. They are intended as a cost-effective, user-friendly set of standards and best practices to help mitigate up to 80 per cent of common Internet threats. Small and medium-sized businesses may obtain certification after adopting these standards.
CyberNB, an agency of Opportunities New Brunswick, introduced Cyber Essentials Canada last year after partnering with the International Cyber Security Protection Alliance and U.K.-based company, Cyber Essentials Direct. The British company is the Canadian accreditation body for Cyber Essentials, allowing it to train Canadian IT companies to set up certification bodies.
Scott Smith, director of Intellectual Property and Innovation Policy at the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, said cybersecurity is particularly important for small and medium-sized businesses.
“The volume and scale of cyber-attacks in recent years should be a concern for businesses of all sizes,” he said in a release.
“In Canada, 99.8 per cent of businesses are small and medium-sized, which are typically not equipped to respond to these threats compared to large businesses. The Canadian Chamber of Commerce encourages them to protect themselves against these threats.”
Francine Landry, New Brunswick’s Economic Development Minister and the minister in charge of ONB, echoed Smith’s statement.
“Small and medium-sized enterprises are often the target of cyber criminals because they do not have the same level of human and technical resources as the larger businesses,” she said. “As a result, they are often used as a gateway in a large enterprise’s supply chain to gain access and harm businesses. It is critical that these companies do all they can to protect themselves.”
Fredericton-based Bulletproof and Waterloo-based Watsec are the first Cyber Essentials certification bodies. They will consult businesses to ensure they meet the standards.
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