Today I posted an article about cybersecurity on the Stanley’s textile blog. And I’m doing so again here because it’s something serious that’s not being taken seriously enough by the vast majority of small to medium-sized (SME) businesses in Canada. You can see the textile article by clicking here.
I want to add by way of emphasis just some of the incidents of cybersecurity reported by the Globe and Mail so far this year and going back into 2023. These are headlines only, but that should be enough to make you sit up and take notice. But better still, it should encourage you to do something about protecting your business as well as you can. You should consult an IT specialist and, while it won’t be free, it will still be a mere fraction of the cost you’ll incur if you have to endure a cyber attack. I know this because such an attack more than ten years ago—a fairly minor attack that didn’t steal anything, just caused damage—on my e-commerce site, cost $8,000.00 to fix.
Here is a selection of those headlines:
January 9, 2024: Toronto Zoo says it’s experiencing a cyberattack.
November 15, 2023: Toronto Public Library workers’ personal information likely taken in hack.
October 24, 2023: More than half of B.C. businesses in survey reported cyber attacks in past year.
October 10, 2023: You need a cybersecurity strategy for your employees, vendors and contractors.
September 26, 2023: Cybersecurity success: Why SMEs must protect themselves from all angles.
September 20, 2023: Air Canada says unauthorized group breached employee data, hacked internal system.
September 12, 2023: The Weather Network nit by a “cybersecurity incident,” says hack impacts website and data.
And so on, and so on, and do on . . .
And just to round this off, consider this troubling headline from August 2023: “Why nobody can seem to solve Canada’s massive hacking problem.”