Thousands of Canadian Govt Accounts Hacked

Thousands of user accounts for online government services in Canada were lately hacked during cyber-attacks, authorities said on Saturday.

The attacks aimed at the GCKey service, utilized by some 30 federal departments and Canada Revenue Agency accounts, the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat explained in a press release, reports AFP.

Passwords and usernames of 9,041 GCKey account holders "were obtained fraudulently and used to seek to control government services," said the authorities.

All accounts affected have been cancelled.  

Approximately 5,500 accounts of the Canada Revenue Agency have been compromised in this and another assault, the authorities said, noting that access to these accounts has been blocked in order to safeguard taxpayers' records.

The government and the federal police also opened an inquiry to assess if privacy breaches also existed and if material has been accessed from such pages, the authorities said.

According to the CBC, since the beginning of August, a number of Canadians have confirmed that their banking information linked to their accounts in the Canada Revenue Agency has changed.

Payments related to the Canadian Emergency Benefit, a package of financial assistance put in place by the Government in response to the Covid-19 outbreak, were also issued on their behalf without their request.