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Last week, Patrik Runald joined CBC’s Lang & O’Leary Exchange to discuss the recent surge in Canadian cybercrime. In the segment, Runald answers a series of questions on why this escalation is happening. He explains how the increase is not an accident, but rather a calculated, organized move. To avoid the severe scrutiny of security software that IP addresses in China and Eastern Europe experience, cybercriminals are moving their networks to countries like Canada that have better cyber reputations. Canadian infrastructure is being used to attack users worldwide. As a result, in the past year alone, Canada has seen a 319 percent jump in servers hosting phishing sites, a 53 percent increase in bot networks, and is now number six in the world for hosting cybercrime.

The numbers are continuously rising, and attacks are growing increasingly more advanced. Read more about the threats here. Watch the full interview here.

The Globe and Mail released an article today highlighting a surprising new “virtual haven” for cybercriminals to operate their scams – Canada. The article draws from a recent study made by the Websense®Security Labs™, which ranks Canada as the 6^th most likely country to host malicious servers (a huge jump from being ranked 13^th last year).

“Canada is moving up in what I call our Top Ten Badness list” – Patrik Runald, senior manager of security research at Websense

The study found that websites engaged in a scam called “phishing” – a ploy where hackers use email to guile people into giving away personal information or passwords – tripled in the past year in Canada. Another type of malware that command-and-control other machines (Botnets) increased by 50%.

The U.S. still remains number one for cyber threats followed by France, Russia, Germany and China. However, the United States has recently upped its cyber law enforcement game, which could be pushing cyber crooks north of the border. Canadian domains are also less likely to be severely scrutinized by security software, leaving Canadian consumers more vulnerable to phishing attacks.

This unexpected surge of cybercrime hosted in Canada raises some big security challenges for both the public and private sector – learn more about how to protect your organization here.