Telecommunications Cybersecurity Services in Canada

Cyber threats specific to Canadian telecommunications companies

• SIM swapping is among the highest-impact attack methods targeting Canadian telecom customers, and the telecom company's customer service infrastructure is the point of compromise.
• An attacker who convinces a carrier's customer service representative to transfer a target's phone number to a SIM card the attacker controls gains the ability to intercept SMS-based one-time passwords, reset banking and email passwords, and drain accounts before the victim is aware anything has happened.
• Canadian victims have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in cryptocurrency and banking funds through SIM swap attacks.
• The weakness is not primarily technical, it is procedural: social engineering scripts exploit inconsistent identity verification practices, gaps between in-store and phone channel authentication requirements, and customer service representatives who prioritize customer satisfaction over security friction.
• Carriers have implemented number transfer protection features, but these are often opt-in rather than default.
• SS7 (Signalling System No.
• 7) protocol vulnerabilities affect all carriers that participate in the global telephone network, including Canadian carriers.
• SS7 was designed in the 1970s with an implicit trust model that assumes all network nodes are operated by legitimate carriers, a trust model that no longer reflects reality.
• Attackers with access to an SS7 node (which can be obtained by registering a carrier in a permissive jurisdiction or by compromising a legitimate carrier's infrastructure) can redirect calls and SMS messages, track subscriber location in real time, and intercept communications without the target's knowledge.
• The CRTC's DNS security requirements and broader network security obligations for carriers reflect a regulatory environment that is increasingly attentive to core network vulnerabilities, though SS7 remediation requires international coordination beyond any single regulator's authority.
• VoIP fraud, specifically International Revenue Share Fraud (IRSF), costs the global telecommunications industry billions of dollars annually and Canadian VoIP providers are not immune.
• IRSF works by compromising a business's PBX system or SIP trunk credentials, then using them to generate large volumes of calls to premium-rate numbers in foreign jurisdictions where the fraudster collects a share of the termination revenue.
• A single weekend of fraudulent traffic can generate charges of tens of thousands of dollars on a business's account.
• Canadian VoIP providers face both the direct cost of fraud where they absorb losses and the reputational cost of customer disputes.
• Toll fraud detection, anomaly monitoring on call destinations, volumes, and timing, is not optional for any VoIP provider operating in Canada, and the CRTC's robocall and STIR/SHAKEN requirements create more compliance obligations for carriers managing voice traffic authentication.
• Lawful intercept infrastructure represents a uniquely sensitive attack surface for telecommunications companies.
• Canadian carriers are required under the Telecommunications Act to maintain the technical capability to assist law enforcement with court-authorized interception of communications.
• This infrastructure is a high-value target for foreign intelligence services precisely because it provides a mechanism to access communications at the network level.
• The compromise of lawful intercept infrastructure at a major carrier provides access to court-ordered interceptions in progress, law enforcement investigation targets, and the metadata of surveillance activity itself.
• Customer care teams are also a persistent phishing and social engineering target: a successful compromise of a customer service account can enable account takeover on behalf of a customer without any technical network access required.

Overlapping obligations for Canadian carriers