Summary: Cyber risks are a constantly evolving operational threat for Canadian businesses. As attack frequency rises, so do the sums lost. Moreover, increasingly sophisticated threats lead to higher risk exposure. In this article, Aprio looks at some rising threats, and how businesses can reduce their overall business risk.
Canadian businesses now operate in a digital landscape where cyber threats are a growing business risk. While larger operations typically have advanced cyber defenses in place, smaller and mid-sized companies often grapple with limited resources. However, the cyber risks they face are by no means any less. By understanding how threats evolve and implementing simple but effective strategies, businesses can improve their risk profile and stay abreast of emerging threats.
Global Cyber Threats: Trends Every Business Should Know
One of the most insidious facets of cyber threats is that they respect no borders. A bad actor can create devastating knock-on effects for businesses from Vancouver to St. John’s without ever setting foot on Canadian soil. This makes it imperative for businesses to know the threat landscape and to regularly monitor for new developments.
As we head into the latter half of the 2020s, major cyber threat trends have had direct implications for businesses. For owners and IT teams, having the following trends on their radars is best practice.
Increasingly Sophisticated Ransomware Attacks
Ransomware is a piece of malicious code installed remotely on a machine, usually by a user clicking a fake link that’s carrying it. After opening a back door, or a pathway into the machine, it then enables the bad actor to take control of the machine’s data, encrypting it, and threatening the business with deletion or exposure of the data, unless they make a payment. Whether or not the data is ever retrieved and released back to the business upon payment, and what the bad actor does with it otherwise, is a gamble.
The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security places ransomware as one of the most disruptive threats to Canadian organizations. Even now, ransomware attacks are constantly evolving, with newer attacks consistently using double-extortion models (e.g., data encryption and threatening public release) to increase pressure on businesses, and frequently asking for untraceable non-fiat currencies, such as cryptocurrency.
Supply Chain Vulnerabilities Have Expanded Attack Surfaces
Today, even the smallest businesses have a network of third-party vendors and platforms they work with. This means that business operations are taking place in various digital portals and interactions, vastly increasing the attack surface — the points at which access can be gained — for malicious actors.
A breach in one vendor can have a cascading effect on your own business (and every other business they work with), and interconnected systems only increase this risk. For manufacturers, distributors, and service providers, this exponentially raises the need for effective cyber protections and keen scrutiny of the vendors they work with.
Rapid Adoption of the Cloud and Artificial Intelligence Tools
The past few years have seen explosive growth in both cloud computing and Artificial Intelligence. While these tools offer businesses considerable productivity benefits, they also give cyber criminals two new attack paths, by introducing new exploits for them to use and expanding the attack surface. We have seen the rise of deepfakes for more convincing scams and to fool biometric identification, as well as Large Language Models being used to humanize phishing scams convincingly.
Notably, misconfigured cloud environments have been identified as one of the most common causes of the data breaches that have occupied news headlines recently.
Increased Global Activity from Threat Actors With a Cause
With global tensions rising to a point we haven’t seen for many decades, we are now seeing cyber threats weaponized by bad actors with a cause, up to and including state-sponsored cyber criminal attacks. Typically, these attacks target critical infrastructure, intellectual property, or supply networks, but no business is immune. Even those who aren’t working directly in government-adjacent sectors are impacted, if they offer an indirect entry point.
Closely tied to this rise, and of considerable concern, is the rise of social cyber crime. The most visible of these being fake bot accounts posing as real people to agitate and spread false information on social media. Social cyber crime also includes cyber bullying, online abuse, hate crimes, and even new forms of child exploitation and trafficking, data breaches, as well as online fraud. While these attacks typically affect individuals more than businesses, organizations should be careful that their online presences, intellectual property, or digital identities are not being used falsely to give credibility to these activities.
How At-Risk Are Canadian Businesses?
Cyber crime has cost Canada roughly C$6.59 billion in 2025, across not only direct losses, but also breach remediation. The impact on the suffering company’s brand should also be taken into account. Furthermore, the loss of business trust after incidents such as data breaches is considerably high.
In 2023-2024, 16% of Canadian businesses experienced a cyber security incident. While larger businesses remain the most at risk, they are typically better at proactively managing that risk.
Small and mid-sized businesses are often the most vulnerable, with 73% having experiences with cyber crime. For any business today, the issue is not if a breach attempt will occur, but rather if they are ready to identify, contain, and recover from one.
Common Business Vulnerabilities
While every business has a unique environment, several vulnerabilities are common:
- Outdated systems, along with insufficient updates and patching, are common in SMEs due to time or budget constraints, and create easy entry points for bad actors.
- Weak access controls, such as shared credentials, poor password management, and the lack of multi-factor authentication, contribute to increased risk.
- Human error and social engineering, particularly phishing, is still one of the leading causes of data breaches for many organizations.
- Inadequate backup and recovery processes compound the issue and make recovery from cyber incidents harder.
Being aware of these vulnerabilities, and having plans in place for addressing them, should be the first line of defense against cyber threats.
Fortifying a Business Against Cyber Crime
To protect your business adequately, you must have strong cyber governance and employee training that don’t just tick boxes, but are both active and ongoing. No tool or practice can outpace human error in this arena. This includes:
- Regular training
- Clear data ownership and accountability
- Enforced role-based access controls
- Established plans in event of an incident
A strong human and governance layer is not only cost-effective, it is still the best risk reduction tool businesses can have. From there, businesses can implement a cybersecurity risk assessment to identify vulnerabilities in their internal and third-party systems.
Once that is in place, Canadian SMEs should implement:
- Multi-factor authentication
- Regular patching and updates
- Secure backups
- Network segmentation (i.e., to limit attacker freedom)
- Endpoint protection (e.g., anti-malware, intrusion detection)
Businesses should also consider vetting the cyber protection of third-party suppliers and vendors. With these in place, you not only reduce the likelihood of a successful cyber crime incident, but also establish the right controls to limit damage and aid recovery.
Final Thoughts: Protecting Your Business From Cyber Risk
Cyber crime has become a business reality, and will remain so while the world’s preferred method of doing business is digital. While the risks are ever-evolving, by focusing on proven controls and employee education, businesses can significantly reduce their exposure to risk, and respond from a stronger position should an incident occur.
Aprio supports small and mid-sized Canadian businesses with business advisory solutions, including cyber risk evaluation support. If you’re ready to improve your cyber readiness, our advisors can help you get started. Connect with our team today.