Canada’s 2025 National Cyber Security Strategy: Securing the Digital Future

On February 6, 2025, the Government of Canada unveiled its renewed National Cyber Security Strategy (NCSS), marking a significant step forward in safeguarding the nation’s digital landscape. This comprehensive strategy outlines Canada’s long-term plan to address the escalating cyber threats that pose risks to national security and economic stability. By fostering collaboration among federal agencies, provincial and territorial governments, Indigenous communities, industry stakeholders, and academia, the NCSS aims to secure Canada’s digital future.   

On the same day, the Government of Canada unveiled its new NCSS, titled "Securing Canada's Digital Future." Announced by the Honourable David McGuinty, Minister of Public Safety, this strategy represents a significant evolution in Canada's approach to managing cybersecurity in an increasingly digitized world. The strategy arrives at a critical juncture when technology has become deeply integrated into the country's critical infrastructure and essential services, from healthcare systems to finance and transportation—making resilience and adaptability more important than ever.

Historical Evolution of Canada's Cyber Security Approach

Canada's journey in developing formal cybersecurity frameworks began in 2010 with its first NCSS. This initial strategy allocated $431.5 million over ten years and was structured around three pillars: securing government systems, partnering to secure vital cyber systems outside the federal government, and helping Canadians be secure online. The 2010 strategy established foundational measures like the Get Cyber Safe campaign to promote public awareness.

 In 2018, the Government of Canada unveiled its second cyber security strategy, which represented a significant financial commitment with investments exceeding $500 million over five years. This strategy responded to the 2017 Cyber Review, which identified gaps in the country's cyber defences and the need for updated approaches given the rapid evolution of technology since 2010. Key accomplishments from the 2018 strategy included the establishment of the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (CCCS) and the National Cybercrime Coordination Unit (NC3) under the RCMP. These institutions enhanced Canada's capacity to coordinate responses to cyber incidents and improve cybercrime investigation capabilities.

 Since 2018, the digital landscape has transformed dramatically. Cyber threats have grown more sophisticated, exploiting the interconnectedness of critical infrastructure and essential services.  Experts note that the 2025 NCSS arrives at a crucial moment, providing a timely response to “emerging and evolving cyber threats perpetually pushing practitioners in various disciplines.”

A mid-term evaluation of the 2018 NCSS revealed that while progress had been made, significant challenges remained. The evaluation highlighted the need for increased collaboration and the avoidance of duplication of efforts across government departments and agencies. Additionally, rapidly evolving technologies have made it easier for malicious actors to disrupt Canadian critical infrastructure organizations' networks, particularly as operational technology increasingly links physical processes to the internet.

Strategic Principles

At the heart of Canada’s NCSS are two guiding strategic principles: Whole-of-Society Engagement and Agile Leadership through Adaptive Governance. These principles set the tone for Canada’s proactive, collaborative, and forward-looking approach to cyber security.

Whole-of-Society Engagement

This guiding principle underlines that securing Canada’s digital future is a collective endeavour—a shared responsibility where government, business, academia, non-profits, and citizens each play an integral role. The NCSS is designed not only to protect systems and data but also to foster an environment where all stakeholders are both contributors to and beneficiaries of a secure digital ecosystem. This focus on broad-based involvement is critical in supporting Canada’s thriving business landscape and robust social fabric.

Central to this approach is the commitment to establish and strengthen partnerships across diverse sectors. By launching initiatives that connect federal, provincial, and municipal governments with private industry and academic institutions, the strategy promotes a unified defence against emerging cyber threats and digital hygiene. At the same time, robust mechanisms for information sharing are being developed to ensure that vital threat intelligence, best practices, and innovative responses circulate seamlessly among all participants.

Moreover, NCSS emphasizes active community involvement by launching programs to raise cyber awareness and improve digital hygiene among Canadians. These efforts equip individuals with the skills and knowledge necessary to navigate and safeguard their online activities, thereby bolstering overall resilience across society.

In this way, Inclusive Collaboration within the NCSS directly supports both the economic prosperity of Canadian businesses and the security of its communities, ensuring that the country’s digital future is built on strong, unified participation from every corner of society.

Agile Leadership

Central to the NCSS is the principle of Adaptive Governance, which addresses adaptive governance, flexible decision-making in today’s fast-evolving cyber threat environment. The strategy recognizes that as cyber threats develop in real time, government and industry alike must have the ability to pivot and respond without delay.  The framework emphasizes:

• Dynamic Policy Adaptation: Regularly update and refine policies and regulatory measures to counter new vulnerabilities and evolving attack vectors.
• Proactive Risk Management: Encourage organizations to anticipate potential threats and implement safeguards before risks escalate into major security breaches.
• Stakeholder Empowerment: Equip both public authorities and private partners with the necessary tools and decision-making authority to act decisively during cyber incidents, thereby minimizing disruptions to national infrastructure and economic stability.

Recognizing the rapidly evolving nature of cyber threats, the strategy emphasizes the need for agile, collaborative, and holistic responses. Rather than a static, one-time policy document, the NCSS establishes a framework for ongoing issue-specific action plans that will evolve over time, which ensures that Canada's cyber security efforts remain responsive to emerging threats and technological developments.

The Three Strategic Pillars

Building on these principles, the strategy is organized around three main pillars:

1. Working with partners to protect Canadians and Canadian businesses from cyber threats - This pillar focuses on forging whole-of-society partnerships, defending Canadian interests internationally, advancing cyber awareness, developing a skilled workforce, and supporting targeted research. 
2. Making Canada a global cyber security leader - Through international engagement and promotion of norms-based behaviours in cyberspace.
3. Detecting and disrupting cyber threat actors - Enhancing capabilities to identify and counter malicious cyber activities.

Impact on Canadian Businesses

For Canadian businesses, the new NCSS has significant implications. Perhaps most notably, the strategy establishes the Canadian Cyber Defence Collective (CCDC), which will serve as a national multi-stakeholder engagement body on cyber resilience. Through this collective, businesses will have direct channels to participate in public-private partnerships addressing national-level cyber security challenges and policy priorities.

The strategy also recognizes the critical importance of information sharing between the public and private sectors. It aims to facilitate faster information exchange and ensure that all partners are taking necessary measures to prevent cyber incidents. For businesses, this likely means both new opportunities to receive threat intelligence and increased expectations regarding their own security practices and incident reporting.

Critical infrastructure operators will be particularly affected, as the strategy emphasizes the protection of essential services that Canadians rely on daily. The CCCS (Canadian Centre for Cyber Security) will improve its partnerships with owners and operators of critical infrastructure in key sectors like finance and energy.

Benefits for Canadian Society

The 2025 NCSS offers several benefits for Canadian society at large. By taking a whole-of-society approach, the strategy aims to make cyber security more accessible to all Canadians. It builds on successful programs like "Get Cyber Safe" and the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre, while also promising to publish new cyber-related materials on emerging topics such as artificial intelligence (AI).

A key focus is on cyber security education for children and youth. The strategy includes funding for awareness programs to help young Canadians safely navigate the digital world and build resilience against online threats. This emphasis on education extends to workforce development, with initiatives designed to improve Canada's cyber talent pipeline through enhanced educational opportunities and programs for skilled foreign workers.

Ultimately, by strengthening Canada's cyber defences, the strategy helps protect essential services from disruption. This ensures that Canadians can continue to access critical resources like healthcare and financial services, even as cyber threats evolve.

Improvements Over Previous Strategies

Looking back to the previous strategy and mid-term evaluation results, we can observe that the 2025 NCSS represents a significant advancement over its predecessors in several key areas:

• More collaborative approach: While previous strategies acknowledged the importance of partnerships, the 2025 NCSS places unprecedented emphasis on whole-of-society engagement and the integration of diverse perspectives, including those of Indigenous communities.
• Adaptive framework: Rather than providing a fixed set of objectives, the new strategy establishes an agile framework that will evolve through issue-specific action plans, ensuring that Canada's cyber security efforts remain relevant in a rapidly changing threat landscape.
• International leadership: The strategy introduces a new role, a foreign policy Senior Official for Cyber, Digital, and Emerging Technology, to coordinate Canada's international engagements across government and represent Canada internationally.
• Economic focus: The strategy recognizes the need to advance Canada's domestic cyber industry and economic security through targeted research and development initiatives.

What Businesses Should Know

With the NCSS built on a foundation of collaboration and designed to be agile, Canadian businesses should take note of several key elements that are likely to influence their operations:

• Enhanced partnership opportunities: Through the Canadian Cyber Defence Collective, businesses will have new avenues to collaborate with government and other stakeholders on cybersecurity initiatives.
• Research and innovation support: The Cyber Security Cooperation Program will provide grants and contributions to initiatives aimed at improving Canada's cyber capabilities and global competitiveness.
• Workforce development: The strategy's focus on developing cyber talent presents both challenges and opportunities for businesses competing for skilled workers, but also promises to expand the available talent pool through educational initiatives.

Canada’s 2025 National Cyber Security Strategy marks a decisive step in building a resilient, innovative, and secure digital future. By embracing a whole-of-society model and establishing an agile framework for ongoing adaptation, the strategy positions Canada to better respond to the complex and ever-changing cyber threat landscape.

For businesses, the strategy creates new opportunities for collaboration with government and other stakeholders, while also setting expectations for enhanced security practices and information sharing. As digital technologies continue to transform Canadian business and society, the NCSS aims to provide a roadmap for building collective resilience against cyber threats.

The strategy’s success will depend on active engagement from every sector of society. Together, Canadians can strengthen digital resilience and secure the country’s place as a global leader in cybersecurity.

Empower your organization, strengthen Canada’s resilience. Align with the National Cyber Security Strategy and help shape a safer, more innovative digital economy. Reach out to cyber security professionals at PKF Antares.