A new mobile cybercrime-fighting team has been launched by Internet security specialist JAWZ Inc. to help stem hack attacks and computer security breaches.
The Toronto-based company, which has its western regional office in Calgary, has set up the quick-response team to provide service to its clients within a 24-hour window following an attack.
“Sometimes you can get a caller who says: ‘My system doesn’t work any more, I think it’s been hacked, and I need help,’ ” says Gregory Miles, director of cybercrime response for JAWZ Inc.
“We help them try to recover from whatever attack has occurred,” by restoring their computers, evaluating their systems to determine if there are other vulnerabilities, and if needed, ‘imaging’ the system to pinpoint evidence and whether the attack came from outside or within the company.
“There is a growing number of external hacker attacks, but the largest threat is still internal to a company . . . a disgruntled employee that would have access to the system already,” says Miles. “There are also situations of improper use of companies’ systems for personal reasons, and child-porn issues.”
Cybercrime “has only just begun,” he added. “Organized crime is starting to use technology even more in what they do. And there is a growing apathy among younger people who don’t like authority, so they’re more likely to break into a system and it doesn’t mean anything to them.”
A company not only risks its most valuable asset — information — in a cyber attack, but also its reputation, increased downtime and loss of sales, as well as potential lawsuits following a breach.
While many large companies have their own in-house security teams or trained personnel, other small and medium-sized businesses need outside expertise in dealing with an attack. Following an incident, trained computer experts from JAWZ can be dispatched within 24 hours to the scene to secure any evidence and bring it back to a lab for analysis if necessary.
In Western Canada, JAWZ Inc. operates its computer forensics lab in Edmonton, while Calgary is the site for a new e-security training centre in partnership with the University of Calgary.
Courses and certificate programs at the Calgary centre, geared primarily to corporate IT staff and computer science grads, will start this month at JAWZ’s northeast Calgary office until completion of a new e-Security Innovation Centre at the Alastair Ross Technology Centre.
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