Statistics Canada conducted The Canadian Survey of Cyber-Security and Cyber-Crime for the first time to measure the impact of cyber-crime on Canadian businesses, including universities.
In 2017, just over one-fifth of Canadian businesses reported that they were impacted by a cyber-security incident which affected their operations. Businesses in certain sectors were more likely to be impacted by cyber-security incidents; Banking institutions (excluding investment banking) (47%), universities (46%) and businesses in the pipeline transportation subsector (45%) reported the highest level of incidents.
More than half of impacted businesses reported that cyber-security incidents prevented employees from carrying out day-to-day work, while 53% reported that incidents prevented the use of resources or services (for example, desktop computers or email). Close to one-third of businesses faced additional repair or recovery costs, 10% lost revenue and 4% reported that they had to reimburse external parties or make a ransom payment in 2017.
Using the tool, university-specific data can be extracted to identify the types of security measures in place within the sector, cyber-security incidents that impacted the sector, and the ways the sector has been impacted by these cyber-incidents.
The series of graphs provided by Statistics Canada shows statistics on cyber-security measures and the impact of cyber-crime on Canadian businesses in 23 sectors (including universities). This interactive data release is now available.