On February 6, 2025, the Government of Canada announced its new National Cyber Security Strategy (NCSS).
The new NCSS includes two overarching principles that will guide Canada's approach to cyber security:
- Whole-of-society engagement: The Government of Canada will deepen partnerships with key stakeholders to address crucial issues in the cyber security landscape. Partnerships with other levels of government, law enforcement, Indigenous communities, the private sector, academia, and civil society will be critical to developing the solutions that will address tomorrow's cyber security challenges.
- Agile leadership: Canada's cyber security solutions will be developed in close collaboration with partners and stakeholders and set out in a series of issue-specific action plans over the coming years, that will provide opportunities for the Government of Canada to make ongoing investments in Canada's cyber security.
The Government of Canada will use these principles to deliver results under three pillars:
- Working with partners to protect Canadians and Canadian businesses from cyber threats;
- Making Canada a global cyber security leader; and
- Detecting and disrupting cyber threat actors.
Working with partners to protect Canadians and Canadian businesses from cyber threats
Through our commitment to working with partners to protect the Canadian public and Canadian businesses, we will bring the topic of cyber security to the forefront of engagements with all levels of government and Indigenous communities to better represent cyber security needs. For instance, through the new Canadian Cyber Defence Collective, the Government of Canada will use public-private partnerships to address national-level cyber security challenges, policy priorities, and cyber operations.
The Government of Canada is committed to strengthening its relationship with academia. As a first step, the government recently announced funding for a new Cyber Attribution Data Centre at the University of New Brunswick. This Centre will use the latest intelligence analytics to better understand the origin or nature of cybercrime and will train and equip the next generation of artificial intelligence (AI) cyber security specialists.
The Government of Canada will strive to make cyber security more accessible to all Canadians by building on the success of the Get Cyber Safe program and the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre. We will continue publishing public awareness documents for cyber-related topics such as AI, the threats posed by large language models, and how to identify misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation to increase engagement with people in Canada.
Making Canada a global cyber security industry leader
The Government of Canada is committing to building on our cyber security industry to make Canada a global leader in innovative cyber technology. We will work with partners by funding initiatives like Canada's Digital Charter, the Cyber Security Innovation Network, the Canada Innovation Corporation and Canada's Digital Technology Supercluster to help educate and grow cyber security talent in Canada. Through grants and contributions from the Cyber Security Cooperation Program, the Government of Canada will work with partners to develop a skilled and diverse cyber security talent pipeline.
We are committing to working with businesses that provide essential services to improve their cyber security. Notably, the Government of Canada announced the Canadian Cyber Security Certification programto enhance cyber security in the defence sector. In addition, we will also continue strengthening Canada's private sector privacy regulations, and establishing new guidelines for the responsible development and use of AI.
Detecting and disrupting cyber threat actors
To reduce the number and impact of cyber incidents, we will make Canada a more difficult target for hostile actors. To do so, the Government of Canada will protect Canadians from cybercriminals by strengthening partnerships with owners of critical energy infrastructure.
This will include fostering the widespread adoption of strong cyber security standards and practices, increasing Canadian threat-monitoring capabilities to better detect incidents when they occur, and encouraging the sharing of threat intelligence and information across economic sectors.
We recognize the importance of working collectively to strengthen Canada's critical infrastructure to deter potential cyber incidents. The Government of Canada will continue working with partners and industry stakeholders as part of the Global Coalition on Telecommunicationsto foster diverse supply chains as well as secure and interoperable standards in the telecommunications sector. We will also continue to support the work done by cyber security organizations and forums, such as the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) Canadian Shield, Rogers Cybersecure Catalyst, Canadian Cyber Threat Exchange, and CANARIE.
