The Canadian laboratory testing company LifeLabs says it made a payment to criminals to retrieve the sensitive information of millions of customers after a cyberattack on its computer systems.

In a letter to customers, LifeLabs president Charles Brown wrote that information related to about 15 million customers, mainly in B.C. and Ontario, may have been accessed during the breach.

The company says it paid the ransom “in collaboration with experts familiar with cyberattacks and negotiations with cybercriminals.”

Growing Concern Over Cyberattacks

The menace of cyberattacks is a growing concern among private citizens, companies and governments.

Last month, cybersecurity firm McAfee said that 33 percent of Canadians had lost $500 or more in online scams this year. And it warned that that number is only expected to rise during the holiday shopping season.

In the past year alone, there’s also been a handful of actual or potential data breaches, including at companies such as Desjardins, Disney Plus, Capital One, Freedom Mobile, DoorDash; as well as government healthcare systems, and even at TransUnion Canada.

A recent survey of Canadian companies found that nearly 90 percent said they had experienced a breach in the past year. O’Higgins, who’s spent the past 30 years in security technology development, said all firms are now facing a new reality.

Be Prepared Against Cyber Attacks

The cyberattacks always can happen, its matter of time, that’s why you should prepare your company when they arrive. Call us and we’ll give a plan to confront the attack or how to come back quickly to the business after the hacked.