DDoS Attacks Targeting Key Canadian Sectors

Canada has faced an uptick in distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, impacting the government, finance and transportation sectors.

The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (the Cyber Centre) issued an alert on these attacks, with some reports suggesting a connection to state-backed cyber groups. There is also more information about these types of attacks in the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) guideline on the topic.

What is a DDoS attack?

A DDoS attack is one in which actors use tools to disrupt and harass organizations by overwhelming systems, such as an application or website, to make that system unreachable or inaccessible. Notably, DDoS attacks are also often used to divert attention away from other types of attacks. Once the attack stops, most systems resume normal operation.