Category Archives: Technology

Major Update of the Canadian Government Login Process for Businesses

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The Canadian government finally seems to have realized allowing individual agencies to create and manage credentials individually, for each business that may want to interact with governmental online services, simply does not make sense, including from a cybersecurity standpoint. Starting soon, users who want to login will have to go through a whole new system.

CIPO (the Canadian Intellectual Property Office) recently started offering information and training on the upcoming changes, so as to allow businesses to make the transition, including those that may need to interact with I.P.-related services, for example as to patents, trademarks or industrial designs.

The new system being deployed by the Canadian government will do away with ISED, the former system whereby businesses could create user IDs to login and interact with governmental online services.

The new identification process will involve each business creating an ID (called the GCKey) to which authorized individual users will have to be linked. The system will also require individuals to go through identification and authentication, to make sure they are the actual individual they purport to be and that they are indeed authorized by the organization at issue. Though you may think this was already the case, it was not.

One offshoot of this new method of allowing access by users on behalf of their organization is that it will do away with the sharing of credentials. Once implemented, it will no longer be possible for all users of an organization to “share” a single user ID (account), as was so frequently until now, for purposes of accessing governmental online services.

The new system will also force all user to use 2-step verification to login into their online account, also something most large organizations have been requiring for a while now. The actual implementation of the changes start March 28.

Cybersecurity 101: Common Sense Can Make All the Difference

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The Slaw blog had a good basic post yesterday morning on cybersecurity for law firms. It made me want to share some of their advice, to which I’d add a few of my own and which may apply not only to professionals but also to any type of organization.

As you may notice, a lot of this is basically common sense, as applied in the digital age:

  • Start by asking yourself what type of data your organization handles, and contemplate what problems you may have were it to fall in other hands or become unavailable;
  • Inventory all devices which your organization uses, including in particular those that connect to its systems and/or the Internet and make sure your personnel knows the dangers associated with plugging anything new (for ex., an infected USB stick);
  • Realize that anything you plug into the Internet (i.e. make accessible) may become a point of entry for eventual hackers or infections, in particular any devices that have not been fully updated (including any firmware and software running on it) – make sure all your hardware and software are regularly updated (starting with your router and computers/servers);
  • Stop allowing or using weak passwords and force everyone to use a solid password manager;
  • Better yet, have everyone in the organization access every tool that can be through Two Factor Authentication (2FA);
  • Acknowledge that employees require on-going cybersecurity training and reminders, and actually schedule it so that it does happen, at least every year,. Including as to things like:
    • The risks associated with using passwords (such as weak or reused ones);
    • Problems which may be triggered by navigating one’s browser to a malicious site or clicking on a link in an email;
    • The dangers of activating, opening or clicking on attachments;
    • The concept of social engineering and its role in many attacks;
  • Know in advance who you will call in case of an incident to investigate or remedy, and make sure your personnel knows what your game plan is;
  • Do not assume you are safe because no one would bother attacking you, as we’re all potential victims of cybersecurity incidents, as anyone can fall victim to an attack without even having been specifically targeted.

With Québec’s passing of a new personal information stature, further to Bill 64, I’d say now’s a good time to brush-up on your cybersecurity practices and safeguards!

Top 10 Ways to Improve Your Handling of Email

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Email now apparently takes more than 2 hours of a typical person’s job, in any given day, a figure which I figure is likely exceeded for a typical attorney. With that kind of time invested in it, you’d think we’ve collectively gotten better, over time, at handling it -not so, if you ask me.

I happened this morning on a post entitled 40 One-Sentence Email Tips which inspired me to distill my own experience (of 20 years reading/writing emails), for your benefit and my own. Here it is, in the hope it may help us be more productive:

  1. Send less emails, receive less emails;
  2. Limit your consents to receiving mass emails (like newsletters);
  3. Use your email app intelligently – don’t spend time manually saving emails into folders, etc.;
  4. Don’t generally answer emails instantly or at all times of the day or night, or risk involuntarily training recipients of your emails to expect that level of responsiveness;
  5. For any new email, start by asking yourself whether this communication channel is appropriate for this particular discussion (would a text or a call be better?);
  6. If email is the way to go, don’t C.C. any person that doesn’t really need to see that email (as you’ll be wasting their precious time with your thoughtless inclusion of their address);
  7. Give your email a Subject that does describe adequately what it’s about (dhu);
  8. Start your emails with a sentence or two that provides context and what specifically you hope to get back from this recipient (information, action, etc.);
  9. In the body of your email, be brief and concise: keep sentences and paragraphs short, and limit the length of your email to about a page -max;
  10. Be kind to recipients of your emails and use plenty of spaces and bullet points, to make scanning your message easy and quick (typically, that person will want to spend about 30 seconds reading it).

We’re collectively spending A LOT of time on electronic communications, which doesn’t mean the average person (or lawyer, for that matter) knows how to handle it adequately. Remember, your email app should work for you, not the other way around.