Breach of Sensitive Information
On Saturday authorities said that thousands of user accounts for online government services in Canada were recently hacked during cyber-attacks.
The Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat explained in a press release that attacks targeted the GCKey service. They primarily targeted users of some 30 federal departments and Canada Revenue Agency accounts.
Authorities said that 9,041 GCKey account holders username and password were acquired fraudulently and used to try and access government services. While GCKey is an authentication service provided by the Government of Canada.
The precautionary measures were taken by cancelling all affected accounts.
What was the target?
Shockingly 5,500 Canada Revenue Agency accounts were targeted in this cyber-attack and another attack, the authorities said to protect taxpayer information, access to these accounts has been suspended.
The government launched an investigation and the federal police to find all the links to determine whether there were any breaches of privacy or any other information was obtained from these accounts, the authorities said.
Alerts since August
Banking information associated with the number of Canadians has been reported since the beginning of August on alert of Canada Revenue Agency accounts, according to CBC.
A financial assistance package put in place by the government in response to the COVID-19 outbreak that includes payments related to the Canadian Emergency Benefit has also been issued in their names without their request.
