Canadian Shield – Sharing the Cyber Centre’s threat intelligence to protect Canadians during the COVID-19 pandemic

Phishing attempts and fake websites related to COVID-19 are all on the rise, as cyber attackers try to take advantage of the global pandemic. The Cyber Centre has a mandate to raise the cyber security bar across the whole of Canada and ensure Canadians stay protected online.

Now, a new initiative from the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) demonstrates how we are delivering on that mandate.

CIRA Canadian Shield is a free protected DNS service that prevents you from connecting to malicious websites that might infect your device or steal your personal information.

The service is provided by the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA), a not-for-profit agency that manages the dot CA internet domain. The service uses threat intelligence from the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (the Cyber Centre).

Our work protecting Government of Canada systems gives us a unique understanding of the cyber threats that are out there. We make that threat intelligence available to outside partners, like CIRA, so that individual Canadians can benefit from it too.

What is a Domain Name System (DNS)?

Unless you have memorized every IP address of every website you want to visit, you are using a DNS server every time you connect to the web.

DNS is a protocol that translates user-friendly web addresses, such as “cyber.gc.ca”, into machine-readable IP addresses.

Think of it as a directory for the internet.

It takes a web address you type in or click on, figures out which IP address it corresponds to, and tells your device to connect to that IP address.

Why does DNS matter for cyber security?

Industry reports estimate that between 80% and 90% of cyber attacks leverage the DNS server^{Footnote 1} . If a cyber attacker can get you to connect to a malicious website, they can infect your device with malware or steal your data.

But if your DNS operator knows the website is malicious, they can ensure the DNS server will not direct you to that site.

You are particularly vulnerable when connecting to public Wi-Fi, because it defaults to whichever DNS server the Wi-Fi operator has chosen.

If that DNS is compromised it might redirect you to malicious sites.

Canadian Shield is available for any computer, iOS or Android device, ensuring that you get directed to a protected Canadian Shield DNS server every time you connect to a new Wi-Fi.

Cyber Attack Scenario

 

Long description - Cyber Attack Scenario

• Step 1. User clicks on malicious link.
• Step 2. DNS server serves IP address to user.
• Step 3. User connects to malicious site.
• Step 4. Malicious site sends malware and ransomware to user, and steals the user's data.

Canadian Shield Scenario

 

Long description - Canadian Shield Scenario

• Step 1. User clicks on malicious link.
• Step 2. Canadian Shield DNS server checks threat list.
• Step 3. The CIRA Threat List finds a match with threat data shared by the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security.
• Step 4. Canadian Shield DNS server prevents user from connecting to malicious site.