Cybersecurity Awareness Month
The National Cybersecurity Consortium is an alliance of universities, private industry, governments and more seeking to bolster Canada’s cybersecurity talent pool and support innovative cyber technologies. getty images via gorodenkoff
Public-private partnership investing in research and training to strengthen cybersecurity protections for Canadians
Whether we’re a consumer worried about a suspected scam email or a corporation safeguarding its confidential business information from a breach, we all have a stake in robust cybersecurity. And on the national scale, cybersecurity products and services are an increasingly important component of the technology industry driving Canada’s economic growth.
Although Canada has many strengths in cybersecurity, several challenges still need to be overcome, including a talent shortage of cybersecurity professionals and continually transforming and increasingly sophisticated digital threats.
A national initiative is underway in Canada that brings together academic centres of expertise, governments, private industry and non-profit organizations in an unprecedented collaboration to overcome the challenges and accelerate world-class cybersecurity innovation and talent development across the country.
The National Cybersecurity Consortium (NCC) is the pan-Canadian network co-ordinating the work to strengthen the Canadian cybersecurity ecosystem and bolster Canada’s position as a global leader in the field. The NCC was founded in 2020 by centres of expertise on cybersecurity and privacy at five Canadian universities: University of Calgary, Toronto Metropolitan University, University of Waterloo, Concordia University, and University of New Brunswick.
These academic centres sought to amplify their impact, not only by collaborating more closely with each other, but also by recruiting additional partners from industry, government agencies and other stakeholders. In 2022, the Government of Canada appointed the NCC to lead the Cyber Security Innovation Network (CSIN) program.
Through Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED), the government allocated $80-million over four years to fund NCC-administered projects in cybersecurity research and development, commercialization and training. ISED’s contribution was to be matched 1:1 at a minimum by the NCC; as it turned out, private companies and other partners stepped forward with more than 2:1 in matching funds.
Dr. Ken Barker, scientific director of the NCC, says that Canada’s prosperity will be bolstered by the success of this national collaboration.
“We will be all the stronger if we are the cybersecurity tool makers, not just the users. We need to be producing innovations ourselves,” he says.
For the projects funded through the program, the intellectual property has to stay in Canada, he explains. “We’ve seen many cases where good technologies are developed in Canada, and because we didn’t have an ecosystem to support them, they were sold to other countries. The goal is to retain the value of these innovations within the country.’
Innovating to stay ahead of the risks
The increasing adoption of new technologies like artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things and the worldwide surge in remote and hybrid work have created new and emerging threats to Canada’s increasingly connected digital systems, including critical infrastructure in sectors like energy and utilities, financial services, transportation and health care.
Bad actors can use these new technologies to harm our systems, says Dr. Barker. “On the flip side, we can use those same technologies to defend against attacks.
“If we want to stay ahead of changing threats, we have to continue to invest. Just like state-sponsored actors and cyber criminals are investing in their organizations in order to attack us, we need to be doing the same thing to defend ourselves. Otherwise we will fall behind and won’t be able to protect Canadians the way we should.”
The NCC announced the recipients of the first round of funding in October 2023, with 20 projects funded for a total value of over $39.2-million. Among the funded projects: development of a cyber-resilient secure 5G network using AI and a hybrid master’s program in cybersecurity analytics.
The second round announced on October 16 of this year saw the funding of 37 projects with a total value of $60-million.
Addressing the talent shortage
While supporting R&D to help bring more technologies from the lab to the marketplace, the NCC is also giving high priority to new training initiatives. “Training is absolutely essential because we have a dearth of highly qualified people who can do these jobs,” says Dr. Barker.
“To build the talent pipeline, we’re putting a significant amount of our resources into encouraging universities, colleges, tech schools and the private sector to train people in cybersecurity skills. And we need to develop their expertise and create opportunities here for our cybersecurity experts, because in light of the worldwide talent shortage, they are being recruited elsewhere.”
Looking to the future, Dr. Barker hopes the momentum created by this public-private national endeavour can continue.
“By integrating our efforts, finding common challenges and tackling them together, we’re going to serve Canadians well -- protecting lives, improving skills and driving economic growth through cybersecurity.”
To view this report on The Globe's website, visit globeandmail.com
To view the full report as it appeared in The Globe's print edition Cybersecurity Awareness Month