According to the Canadian government, the decision was made to block the WeChat social network and the Kaspersky application to ensure the security of information on government networks.
Canadian authorities decided to ban the Chinese social network WeChat and the Russian "Kaspersky" information security products on official mobile devices of employees of government departments. This was reported on October 30 by a Canadian government spokesman.
A statement posted on the government's website said: "Treasury Board Chair Anita Anand today announced a ban on the use of Chinese social company WeChat and Russian Kaspersky products on government mobile devices."
The decision took effect on October 30. WeChat and Kaspersky applications will be blocked and removed from government mobile devices, and users will also be prohibited from downloading these applications in the future.
This decision was made to ensure the security of Canadian government information and networks.
Russia adopts a new system to protect against cyber attacks
The head of the Center for Monitoring Public Communications Networks in Russia, Sergei Khutortsev, announced that Russia will adopt a new electronic system to protect against DDoS cyber attacks.
Khutortsev said: “The Russian system dedicated to protecting against DDoS cyber attacks will begin its work on a trial basis in November of this year, and will be launched at full capacity in early 2024.”
He added: “We are building two new centers to clean Internet data from malicious files and links that are used in cyber attacks. The two centers are being equipped with advanced protection equipment capable of filtering data and dealing with complex cyber attacks. In 2023, we were able to monitor more than 9 thousand DDoS attacks, that is, 300% more than the number of cyber attacks we monitored in 2022.
The head of the Russian Roskomnadzor Authority, Andrei Lipov, had previously indicated the necessity of developing a Russian electronic system to protect the country’s Internet networks from cyberattacks, especially DDoS cyberattacks, and the necessity of developing electronic “filters” capable of identifying weak points in networks and Internet servers.
Distributed attacks on electronic networks are often referred to as distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, and these attacks rely on sending multiple requests to the attacked web resource, with the aim of bypassing the website's ability to handle multiple requests, and thus preventing it from working properly.