The CCTX: Building a More Resilient Digital Canadian Economy

Six years ago, the private sector created the CCTX to provide a safe environment for Canadian organizations to increase their cyber resilience through collaboration and sharing cyber threat information. Since then, the cyber threat worsened. Cyber attacks have increased. The number of victims, large and small, now encompasses every business sector. Cyber attackers continue to exploit advances in technology with little risk of being caught and held to account. No organization is immune to these threats. Organizations now realize that they cannot combat these attackers alone. Collaboration is crucial. The need for the CCTX has never been greater. The CCTX is responding with new products, services, and opportunities for meaningful collaboration.

Collaboration is increasingly recognized as an essential cyber security tool. Governments and regulators encourage collaboration as a best practice.   Here’s what it looks like in action.

The CCTX’s cross-sector insights enhance the predictive capability of your existing cyber defences, enabling you to adjust security measures and reduce vulnerabilities proactively. By tapping into a multi-industry body of knowledge, organizations can better anticipate and mitigate risks, bolstering their own cyber security, improving their resilience, and contributing to a more resilient digital Canadian economy.

The CCTX provides a Canadian-focused, curated feed of cyber threat intelligence. Threat information is provided by CCTX members, the government, international organizations, and curated commercial feeds. Information from members is not available through other sources.   CCTX analysts provide a constant flow of threat information suitable for all sizes of organizations. Intelligence feeds are in a machine-readable format while others are alerts, narrative reports and assessments. Some are very tactical others are strategic. Members can select the type and format of the information they receive. We recently implemented a new portal delivering more intelligence – more accessible, easier to find the information you need.

Ensuring the cyber resilience of your supply chain is essential to maintain business operations. Every business relies on other organizations to supply or distribute their goods and services. The most secure corporate infrastructure doesn’t help the business continue operating when the supply chain upon which it relies is rendered inoperative by a successful cyber attack. The CCTX provides a trusted environment where organizations and their supply chain can meet to support their mutual interest in cyber security.

​ ​In the CCTX, Communities of Interest enable cross-sector collaboration projects to solve current and active concerns - an activity that cannot be effectively undertaken by one organization.  

In the CCTX, Communities of Interest enable cross-sector collaboration projects to solve current and active concerns - activity that cannot be effectively undertaken by one organization. The DarkSpace IP project is one such initiative. CCTX members benefit from the predictive attack vectors generated by the project. Activities such as these serve as a cyber early warning system.

Sharing is the backbone of the CCTX. It’s much broader than just sharing data. It’s learning from each other. It’s sharing best practices. Members share what they can. Some members share observed indicators of compromise that they have detected on their networks – information that is not available through other sources. This high confidence collection of indicators is suitable for uploading to defensive systems. Other members share documents they have produced for example, employee cyber security guides. Documents and policies like these can be used by other organizations to help improve their resilience and reduce their cost of cyber security. Particularly for SMEs, getting a head start through this type of sharing is invaluable.

Through participation in the CCTX, members develop relationships outside their usual sphere of contacts - contacts that can be of immense help when the crisis hits. A crisis is a lousy time to be exchanging business cards or looking for resources.

Collaboration and sharing takes many forms. Weekly, members participate in a call to review the evolving threats – what’s happened the past week, what they are seeing, what events are shaping the threat environment, and what threats require increased attention. In response to major incidents, members participate in daily threat calls to exchange perspectives on the threat and mitigation strategies. These discussions are an excellent way for organizations to benchmark and improve on their response.   Webinars with a technical focus are held regularly. Topics range from new cyber protection capabilities delivered by leading industry experts to changes in government legal and regulatory regimes that will impact cyber defenders. In-person symposiums are another opportunity for members to get together to learn about and discuss the latest cyber defence techniques. The recently concluded Annual Symposium held in Toronto attracted over 400 registrants. Planning for next year has commenced. Now conducting regional events – Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver have been completed and planning is underway for additional coast-to-coast events. Some events are half-day, some are topic specific full-day sessions held in facilities graciously donated by CCTX member companies.

The CCTX is mindful of the needs of SMEs (1 – 250 employees). They represent 64% of the CCTX membership. A representative from this community participates on the CCTX Board of Directors to help guide the development and delivery of service tailored to their needs. A SME collaboration group meets regularly to discuss cyber challenges unique to them. Recently, the CCTX was honoured to be the recipient of an award by the Government of Ontario through the province’s Critical Technology Initiatives program. In partnership with Rogers Cybersecure Catalyst, “the initiative will provide training and support to entrepreneurs and SMEs in developing and adopting cybersecurity solutions, and will empower Ontario-based technology startups to solve key cybersecurity-related challenges”.

The CCTX continues to grow. Its 160 members, in 14 sectors, represents 1.5 million employees. Don’t hesitate, now is the time to join others who share your need for a more resilient cyber work environment. Cyber security can be a competitive advantage. You don’t need to have a cyber team – you only need to have an interest in improving your cyber resilience. Demonstrate your leadership. The CCTX is here to help you.