Real risks of virtual non-protection

Hacking, theft of personal, professional and commercial data… these acts are more than disruptive. “They have a major cost for companies, which amounts to tens of millions of dollars,” says Michel. “Failure to protect is a major risk that has immediate financial consequences. There is definitely an impressive security issue.”

According to the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security , cyber threat actors are increasingly targeting small and medium-sized organizations to obtain data about their customers, partners and suppliers. They are looking for financial data, information about their payment systems or other proprietary information. Reputational damage or theft of intellectual property are at stake, as well as all sorts of disruptions including lost productivity, in addition to requiring expenses related to business recovery.

"More and more companies are setting up websites and are offered protection services by their hosting provider. Oddly enough, the demand is not yet strong enough for all hosting providers to equip themselves with protection systems that are powerful and effective enough to combat current cyberattacks, which are developing day by day, constantly.

So we developed a website protection service, Deflect . We make copies of the sites in our infrastructure, and it is this that is attacked, daily in fact. The original site remains protected. We created an artificial intelligence machine and trained it not to reject "malicious traffic", because we could not overcome it, but to recognize what is good. It is more and more sophisticated. We also have the option of hosting them with us, on eQPress , which is really very secure.

eQualitie: in the name of freedom of information

Even the Treasury Board, responsible for the Government Cyberdefense Center (which became the Ministry of Cybersecurity and Digital Affairs on January 1, 2022), as well as audits related to the cybersecurity of ministries and other organizations, was attacked in early April. More than 31,000 Quebecers were reportedly affected by this data leak.

Deflect was initially created to protect the freedom of expression of social groups often attacked for their positions. The system protects the websites of more than 750 groups from 80 countries against cyberattacks that aim to oppose activist action or political or societal changes. Cyber contractivism is very real. Ransomware attacks, digital attacks, as well as digital espionage, are increasing. "With Ukraine, people are realizing it, but it's something that has existed for a long time," explains Michel, who was also co-founder and Director of Alternatives , and co-president of the Association québécoise des organismes de coopération internationale ( AQOCI ).

Some governments, such as Myanmar, which recently experienced a coup, are increasingly resorting to complete Internet shutdowns. "We developed an Internet browser, CeNo, for Censorship No!, which allows local users to still have access to information. In this case, the military junta had closed the international valve of the Internet. CeNo is a sharing system similar to Bit Torrent for movies. Instead of downloading your Hollywood movie from a central server, everyone shares it, because it is decentralized.

In Ukraine, where the Internet is at risk of fragmentation, particularly in areas controlled by Russia, CeNo users can circumvent Russian filtering and censorship by sharing information. There are also obviously the conditions of the cut to investigate, in particular checking the condition of the wires, which can be damaged by the bombings. We went to install emergency servers in several cities that allow communication, at least at the city level. We make backups and move them because some have already been destroyed.

Somehow, eQualitie has managed to create technologies and offer services to protect freedom of information. It’s impressive. It must be said that the subject is close to the heart of its founder, Dmitri Vitaliev, whose father, a dissident journalist, had to flee Moscow. Free expression in a technological world has become his hobby horse. Dmitri has written and trained on cybersecurity.

He understood that in a context where opinions are more polarized than ever, including on our doorsteps, freedom of expression is fundamental and digital security just as much, since it is through the Internet and social networks that it is propagated today.

Furthermore, it is interesting to know that the organization Reporters Without Borders estimated in its world ranking on press freedom in 2020 that the pandemic had highlighted and amplified the threats to the right to free, independent, pluralist and reliable information.