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Authorities said on Thursday that thousands of user accounts for online government services in Canada were lately hacked during cyber-attacks.
In a press release, the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat clarified that the GCKey service, used by around thirty federal departments and Canada Revenue Accounts, were targeted by the attacks.
The authorities said that the passwords and usernames of 9,041 GCKey account holders were acquired deceitfully and used to try and evaluate government services.
All compromised accounts are reported to have been cancelled.
The authorities said that nearly 5,500 Canada Revenue Agency accounts were targeted in this and another attack, adding that access to these accounts has been put off to defend taxpayer information.
An inquiry was conducted by the government and the federal police to find out whether there were any breaks of privacy and whether information was attained from these accounts.
The CBC said that several Canadians have reported since the beginning of August that their banking information linked with their Canada Revenue Agency accounts has been changed.
Payments connected to the Canadian Emergency Benefit, a financial assistance package set up by the government in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, have also been issued in their names without their request.
