London Drugs stores remained closed across Western Canada this week after the B.C. retailer revealed it was contending with a “cybersecurity incident.”
London Drugs is “currently working with leading third-party cybersecurity experts to bring our operations back online in a safe and secure manner,” according to a Tuesday statement from the company, which failed to specify when stores would reopen.
The event harkens back to last year’s cybersecurity attack against Indigo, another iconic Canadian retailer who took a critical blow.
At the time of Indigo’s fiasco, we were already long warning of Canada’s talent gap in the cybersecurity field, and the subsequent damage it is costing the country.
Unfortunately, since then, the tech talent gap has improved little. While total employment in Canada’s cybersecurity sector rose more than 12% last year, a report from Upskill Canada and Deloitte found, up to one-in-six positions still remain unfilled.
However, there is cause for hope, with an increasing number of solutions targeting the problem.
These efforts include the 12-week Cyber Security Program offered by Vancouver’s Lighthouse Labs; a collaboration between the Information and Communications Technology Council and Microsoft; and recent investments into Canada by Silicon Valley giant Fortinet.
With roughly 25,000 total empty positions to fill, Canada’s cybersecurity sector remains well shy of filling the void, and that’s a serious problem. Cyber attacks have been on the rise globally in recent years, data shows, with IBM finding that the average data breach costs a Canadian company $7 million—a figure higher than most countries in the world.
But this problem for Indigo and London Drugs also represents an opportunity for the talent pools of today and tomorrow. Today, it is more accessible than ever to enter the field—Lighthouse’s Cyber Security Program, for example, requires no prior industry experience—with the sector offering high job security and well-paying roles.
