Strengthening Cybersecurity in Canada’s Municipal Sector: A Verified Analysis

The report details a major ransomware attack on the City of Hamilton (25 Feb 2024) that disabled ~80% of its network, prompted an $18.5M ransom demand (refused), and resulted in ~C$18.3M in recovery costs; a $5M insurance claim was denied because multi-factor authentication had not been fully implemented. It places Hamilton’s incident in the context of other Canadian municipal ransomware cases and highlights core vulnerabilities—insufficient cyber budgets, partial/unenforced controls (MFA), and inadequate backup/incident response planning—that drive high financial and operational impact for local governments.