Industry · Municipalities & local government

Cybersecurity for Canadian municipalities

Local governments deliver essential services on the same internet-facing systems as any business — but with public budgets, lean IT teams, and residents who have nowhere else to go. We help Canadian municipalities detect intrusions early and keep services running.

Book a consultation Under attack now?

Context

Why local government is different

From single-staff townships to regional municipalities, Canadian local governments run broad IT estates stitched together over decades, holding resident data across tax, utility, licensing, and social-service systems and operating services whose downtime is immediate and public. The 2024 ransomware attack on the City of Hamilton — which disrupted phone lines and municipal systems for weeks — showed how visible and costly an incident becomes when residents cannot pay a bill or reach a service. Our managed detection and response is built for that reality.

Threats

What we see hitting local government hardest

Ransomware against essential services

Water, transit, permits, payments, and emergency dispatch cannot stay down. We monitor for the precursors — credential abuse, lateral movement, suspicious admin tooling — that come before encryption.

Phishing and account takeover

Staff and elected officials are targeted for the access and authority they hold. We detect credential theft fast, isolate affected accounts, and support mailbox forensics.

Business email compromise

Attackers redirect vendor, grant, and payroll payments by impersonating finance staff or suppliers. We watch for the inbox-rule and conversational patterns that precede these losses.

Legacy and operational technology

SCADA, water-treatment, traffic, and building systems were never designed to be networked. We monitor the boundary around them and detect when they start behaving abnormally.

Compliance & obligations

What you have to satisfy

Provincial access & privacy law

MFIPPA in Ontario, FOIP in Alberta and BC, and equivalents elsewhere govern resident personal information held by local governments — including safeguarding duties and breach handling.

Breach notification & oversight

Privacy commissioners increasingly expect notification of significant breaches involving resident data. We help detect, contain, and document incidents to the standard your regulator expects.

Records retention & transparency

Public-sector recordkeeping and freedom-of-information obligations mean the systems holding municipal records are both a target and a compliance responsibility. We help protect them.

Insurance & municipal risk pools

Municipal insurers and reciprocal pools now expect MFA, EDR, monitored backups, and tested incident response. We deliver and document all four so coverage does not become a project.

How we help

The services that fit local government best

Managed Detection & Response

Continuous monitoring across endpoints, network, cloud, and identity — with senior analysts who investigate before escalating to your team.

24/7 Security Operations

Always-on coverage so an intrusion that starts on a Friday night does not become a Monday-morning service outage — without standing up a SOC in-house.

Incident Response retainer

A pre-agreed playbook, contacts, and response window so when something happens, council and residents see a coordinated response rather than a scramble.

All services

Full managed security portfolio

Managed Detection & Response

Continuous threat hunting and rapid response across your environment, backed by a team that investigates every alert that matters.

Learn more

24/7 Security Operations

A round-the-clock SOC monitoring your systems every hour of every day, so threats are caught when attackers expect you to be asleep.

Learn more

Endpoint Detection & Response

Modern EDR on every laptop, server, and workstation to stop ransomware and malware before it spreads across your network.

Learn more

Vulnerability Management & Remediation

Most providers find your vulnerabilities and hand you a list. We find them, prioritize them, and close them — with the evidence your auditors and insurers expect.

Learn more

Cloud & Network Security

Hardening, monitoring, and policy management for your cloud platforms, firewalls, and network — wherever your business runs.

Learn more

Compliance & Risk Advisory

Practical guidance to meet PIPEDA, SOC 2, and industry requirements, with reporting your auditors and leadership can trust.

Learn more

Common questions

Municipalities & local government FAQ

Do you work with small municipalities and townships?

Yes. Our managed service scales down to small local governments that cannot justify a full-time security hire but face the same threat surface as larger cities.

Can you help during an incident that is happening right now?

Yes. Call our under-attack line. We can engage immediately to contain the intrusion, preserve evidence, and support your insurer and notification obligations.

Where is our security telemetry stored?

In Canadian data centres by default — important for public bodies, access-and-privacy obligations, and resident trust.

local government security, in depth