Techish

In February 2025, a cyber attack compromised sensitive systems within the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). Investigations pointed to a targeted supply chain attack exploiting third-party software vulnerabilities. The consequences included operational disruption, loss of public confidence, and significant remediation costs.

When IT leaders think of cyberattacks, they think of their customers’ sensitive data, but all too often it’s the employees that get compromised. The internet exploded in November of last year when the Canadian Government announced an investigation into a cyberattack that targeted private companies working to relocate military, federal police and foreign service members.

Federal government employees saw their personal and financial data compromised by companies who apparently administer 20,000 federal moves annually. The data breach covered 24 years of data, so a lot of people were affected.

One thing that stands out is that it was private enterprise serving government who got hacked. Clearly the service providers lucky enough to win coveted, high-value government contracts weren’t doing enough to ensure that data was protected.

What does this mean to the future of RFPs to government, not to mention government expectations of service providers?

Is there an opportunity for your organization be a standout here?

One thing’s certain, you don’t want to be the IT executive in charge when something like this happens.