Canada’s foreign affairs department suffers a data breach

The Canadian government has reported that Global Affairs Canada (GAC), the country’s foreign affairs department suffered a cyberattack where the personal information of users, including employees, was compromised. According to CBC, the breach affected at least two internal drives, as well as emails, calendars and contacts of many staff members.

In a statement, GAC shared that they activated an unplanned IT outage on 24 January to ‘address the discovery of malicious cyber activity.’

GAC updated that the critical services and external communication channels were accessible and working and that its tech teams were working to restore full connectivity. They also shared that the breached users and employees were being contacted with mitigation measures.

While GAC has not mentioned the date when the data breach occurred, Canadian media reported, citing unnamed sources, that it may have been 20 December and 24 January.