London Drugs stores in Western Canada have been closed for a second day after the company announced Sunday that it was the “victim of a cybersecurity incident.”
“Upon discovering the incident, London Drugs immediately took steps to protect its network and data, including providing containment, remediation, and assistance in conducting a forensic investigation,” the company said in a statement to City News on Monday. “This includes hiring top-notch third-party cybersecurity experts to help.” .
Experts say recent developments in machine learning are ushering in a new era of cyber threats.
“In the past, a single attacker could only do limited damage. But with cloud tools, AI, and more, an army of digital attackers can wreak havoc,” Canada said. said Jamie Hari, Director of Cybersecurity at the Internet Registration Authority.
“They are able to attack more targets because they are using automation and artificial intelligence to increasingly perform tasks that human hackers previously had to do manually.”
London Drugs has not yet announced when its stores will reopen. The retailer announced in a social media post Monday afternoon that it had shut down its phone lines and would restore access once the investigation was complete. Customers were advised to visit the store directly if they needed a pharmacy urgently.
David Jao is a professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Waterloo and an expert in cryptography. He said concerned customers and business owners need to be very careful about digital safety.
“Be mindful of your own cybersecurity position,” Zhao told CityNews. “What kind of things are you serving?”
But Zhao is hopeful that artificial intelligence could also be a solution to thwarting future attacks.
“I think AI is great as a form of cybersecurity defense,” Jao says. “[Certain tech] Use AI to look for patterns in network and file access that are highly representative of ongoing cybersecurity attacks. This technology can actually thwart attacks. ”
