A rash of cyberattacks has targeted government websites in Canada recently, with the latest one prompting several federal and provincial government agencies to shut down their systems. On Dec. 10, the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security issued an alert about a “critical vulnerability” in Apache Log4j—a widely used logging software—which would allow an unauthorized actor to hack and access an affected device remotely. “The Cyber Centre strongly encourages organizations internally review potentially impacted applications. While non-exhaustive, community sources are assisting in these efforts with the identification of impacted products,” the federal cyber security centre said. Defence Minister Anita Anand issued a statement on Dec. 12 saying the government is aware of the security risk and reiterated the Cyber Centre’s call for all Canadian organizations to “pay attention to this critical internet vulnerability.” Several federal and provincial government agencies heeded the advice and shut down their websites as a precautionary measure. …