Canada Gets Serious In War Against Cybercrime, Sets $1 Billion Budget

Canada is not known for putting a lot of money into anything related to defense, at least, not when compared to its other pursuits that are typically of a more social nature. However, with the escalating issues related to cybercrimes, it seems the North American nation has finally had enough. That’s why it’s setting aside $1 billion to ramp up the fight against potential cyber-attacks, particularly with regards to the country’s elections.

According to CBC Canada, the fund allocation was a result of multiple government departments asking for help in addressing the growing threat of cyber issues across numerous agencies. Much of the money will go towards bolstering the country’s defenses against outside cyber threats, which have seen a marked growth as the internet became more pervasive.

Some of the money will also go towards countering any attempt at meddling with the nation’s elections in 2019, which has been the case in many other sovereign countries, with the election of President Donald Trump being a major example. Canada’s own leaders are intent on making sure that the process of choosing representatives are as fair and democratic as possible with no interference from outside agents.

This isn’t just going to be a government effort, however, as the private sector is also being asked to get onboard. This is important because a bulk of the issue with regards to election interference has been in the form of social media campaigns. By forming closer cooperation with private companies and government agencies, it would be much easier to address the problem, Futurism notes.

On the other hand, a solid plan of attacking the issue has yet to be proposed by any government. Without a concrete strategy that is specifically geared towards combating outside interference via platforms like social media, governments would just be wasting money and energy.