From ransomware attacks to phishing scams to compromised home networks — cyberattacks are no longer something that only happens to large corporations. Our certified technicians provide professional cybersecurity services to individuals, families, and small businesses across all Canadian provinces, entirely remotely.
The threat landscape changed dramatically in the last five years. Here is what that means for ordinary Canadians.
Canada is consistently ranked among the top five most targeted countries for cybercrime globally. The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security reported a dramatic rise in ransomware incidents affecting small businesses, municipalities, hospitals, and individuals throughout 2023, 2024, and 2025. The average cost of a data breach for a small Canadian business now exceeds $200,000 CAD when you account for downtime, recovery costs, lost clients, and regulatory penalties.
But here is the uncomfortable truth that rarely makes headlines: the majority of successful cyberattacks in Canada do not exploit sophisticated zero-day vulnerabilities. They exploit human error, weak passwords, outdated software, and unprotected systems that have been sitting exposed for months or years. Most attacks could have been prevented with basic — but consistently applied — security practices.
That is exactly where we come in. At ISF Tech (Informatique Ste-Foy), we have been on the front lines of computer security since 2014. We see the aftermath of attacks every week: the ransomware that encrypted a freelancer's entire client portfolio, the phishing email that gave a criminal access to a small retailer's bank account, the family whose cloud photos were stolen because they reused passwords across a dozen sites. We know what works, what doesn't, and what the average Canadian actually needs to stay safe without a corporate IT budget.
Our approach is practical, not theoretical. We do not sell fear — we sell solutions. And because everything we offer can be delivered remotely, geography is no barrier. Whether you are in Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Halifax, Winnipeg, or a small town in northern Ontario, we can help you the same day.
Practical protection for your devices, your accounts, and your data. All services available remotely, Canada-wide.
Your computer acting strangely? Unexpected pop-ups, sluggish performance, programs you never installed, or your browser redirecting to unknown sites? These are classic signs of infection. We scan your system thoroughly, remove all malicious code — including rootkits and keyloggers that standard antivirus misses — and harden your system against re-infection. We work on both Mac and Windows, and we have handled everything from common adware to active ransomware during live incidents.
A compromised account is more than an inconvenience — it is an open door into your financial, personal, and professional life. We help you recover hacked email accounts (Gmail, Outlook, iCloud), locked Apple IDs, compromised Microsoft 365 environments, and breached social media profiles. After recovery, we put proper security in place: two-factor authentication, unique strong passwords via a password manager, and session audit to see what the attacker accessed.
Your home router is the gateway to every device in your home — your laptop, your phone, your smart TV, your security cameras. Most Canadians never change the factory password on their router, and many use outdated firmware with known vulnerabilities. We audit your home network remotely, guide you through securing your router, set up a guest Wi-Fi for IoT devices, and verify that your network is not broadcasting unnecessary information to neighbours.
You clicked a link. You entered your credentials on what turned out to be a fake site. Or you received a call from someone pretending to be the CRA, Microsoft, or your bank. These situations require immediate action — not panic. We help you contain the damage quickly: change passwords, revoke active sessions, check for unauthorized transactions, and scan your device for any tools the attacker may have installed. We also teach you to identify phishing attempts so you never fall for the same trick twice.
Ransomware is one of the most disruptive cyberattacks you can experience. Your files get encrypted, a countdown timer appears, and you are told to pay in cryptocurrency to get your data back. Paying is almost never the right answer. We help you understand exactly what variant attacked you, whether decryption tools exist, whether your backup strategy allows for a full recovery, and how to rebuild your environment securely. We have handled dozens of ransomware incidents for individuals and small businesses across Canada.
Not sure how secure your setup actually is? A security audit gives you an honest, structured picture of your current vulnerabilities — without waiting for an attack to discover them. We review your password practices, account security, device configurations, backup strategy, software patch status, and network security. You receive a written summary of what we found and a prioritized list of what to fix first, along with our help implementing the most critical changes.
Microsoft 365 is the productivity backbone of most Canadian small businesses — and it is also one of the most frequently compromised platforms in the country. Default settings are notoriously permissive. We harden your Microsoft 365 tenant: enable Conditional Access, configure MFA properly, audit mailbox permissions, disable legacy authentication protocols, and review your SharePoint and OneDrive sharing settings. If your tenant has already been compromised, we help you evict the attacker and review what data was accessed.
Every device that connects to the internet is an endpoint — and each one is a potential entry point for an attacker. We configure proper endpoint protection on your Mac and Windows devices: antivirus, firewall rules, automatic updates, disk encryption (FileVault on Mac, BitLocker on Windows), and browser hardening. For businesses with multiple workstations, we provide a consistent baseline configuration that dramatically reduces your attack surface.
The best defence against ransomware, hardware failure, and accidental deletion is a backup strategy that actually works — and that you have tested. We help you implement the 3-2-1 backup rule: three copies of your data, on two different media types, with one copy offsite or in the cloud. We configure Time Machine on Mac, Windows Backup, and cloud services (Backblaze, OneDrive, Google Drive) and verify that your backups restore correctly. Because a backup you have never tested is not a backup — it is hope.
Understanding your adversary is the first step to defending against them.
The threats Canadians face in 2025 are not abstract or exotic. They are methodical, scalable, and targeted at exactly the kind of systems that most people and small businesses run. Here is what we see regularly in our work:
An attacker gains access to a business email account — or spoofs one convincingly — and sends fraudulent payment instructions to employees, vendors, or clients. The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre reported hundreds of millions of dollars lost to BEC fraud in recent years. The attack is devastatingly effective because the email looks completely legitimate. A single compromised Microsoft 365 account in a small accounting firm can result in clients wiring money to criminals believing they are paying a real invoice.
Ransomware groups have shifted their focus from large enterprises to small businesses and individuals — partly because large organizations now have dedicated security teams, and partly because small businesses are easier to compromise and more likely to pay quickly to avoid operational disruption. Healthcare clinics, law firms, real estate agencies, and construction companies are among the most frequently targeted sectors in Canada. The average ransom demand has grown to tens of thousands of dollars, and paying does not guarantee you get your data back.
The Canada Revenue Agency impersonation scam remains one of the most reported cybercrime types in Canada. You receive a call, email, or text claiming you owe back taxes, and that you will be arrested if you do not pay immediately. The sophistication has increased dramatically — attackers now use spoofed phone numbers, fake CRA letterhead in email, and even fake CRA login portals that harvest your My Account credentials. The CRA will never demand payment via gift cards, cryptocurrency, or wire transfer.
Every major data breach — and there have been thousands affecting Canadian accounts — dumps billions of email and password combinations into underground markets. Attackers use automated tools to try these credentials across hundreds of services simultaneously. If you used the same password on a site that was breached in 2020 as you use for your bank or email today, that credential is likely already known. This is the single most preventable cybersecurity failure, and it affects millions of Canadians who simply do not know their credentials were compromised.
A pop-up appears telling you that your computer is infected, and a phone number to call Microsoft support. Or your computer screen freezes and a voice announces that your device has been blocked. These are tech support scams — and they are designed to trick you into giving remote access to a criminal who will either steal your data, install malware, or charge you hundreds of dollars for "repairs" you do not need. If this happens to you, do not call the number, do not allow remote access, and do not pay. Call us instead at (418) 255-8998.
Every minute counts after a breach. Call or text us — we respond fast and triage your situation immediately.
📞 (418) 255-8998 💬 Text This Number 💻 Start Remote SessionSecure AnyDesk connection · 256-bit encrypted · You control the session
You do not need to run a business to be a valuable target. Individual Canadians are targeted every day — through their email accounts, their banking credentials, their iCloud photos, their identity documents. The damage from a personal breach can be just as devastating as a corporate one: drained bank accounts, stolen tax refunds, years of identity fraud to untangle.
We work with individuals across Canada who want straightforward, honest help with their personal digital security. No corporate packages, no monthly retainers — just practical sessions that solve real problems and teach you what you need to know going forward.
Common issues we handle for individuals:
A 60–90 minute remote session that covers:
Secure, fast, and transparent from start to finish.
Call (418) 255-8998, send a text message, or use our contact form. Describe what is happening — or what you want to protect yourself from. You do not need to know the technical name for the problem. Just tell us in plain language and we will take it from there.
Most cybersecurity situations — active breaches, suspicious activity, locked accounts — are treated as priority. We schedule sessions quickly and confirm by text or email. Sessions typically run 60 to 120 minutes depending on the scope of the issue.
AnyDesk is a trusted remote desktop tool used by IT professionals worldwide. It requires no installation — just download, run, and share your temporary access code. The connection is encrypted with 256-bit TLS. You see everything that happens on your screen and can end the session with a single click at any time. We never retain access after the session ends.
We work methodically through the issue while narrating what we are finding and doing. No jargon, no unexplained actions. If we find something unexpected — a piece of malware, a compromised account, an open vulnerability — we explain it in plain English before we do anything about it. You make informed decisions; we execute them precisely.
Before the session ends, we walk you through everything that was done, explain any changes we made, and give you a short list of follow-up actions — things to monitor, accounts to review, habits to change. Payment is collected by credit card at the end. If we could not resolve the issue remotely, you pay nothing.
Cybersecurity threats do not stop at provincial borders. Neither do we.
The beauty of remote cybersecurity work is that location is irrelevant. We have responded to ransomware incidents for businesses in Alberta, recovered hacked accounts for individuals in Nova Scotia, set up Microsoft 365 security for firms in British Columbia, and hardened home networks for families in Manitoba — all without anyone travelling anywhere. As long as your device can connect to the internet, we can connect to it securely.
We serve clients in all ten provinces and three territories: Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, Northwest Territories, Yukon, and Nunavut. Rural and remote communities are just as accessible as urban centres — and often they are the ones with the least access to local IT expertise, which is precisely why a national remote service matters.
Our team is fully bilingual in English and French, which makes us particularly valuable in provinces with significant francophone populations — Quebec, New Brunswick, parts of Ontario and Manitoba — where finding English-speaking cybersecurity help from someone who also understands the local regulatory context (Quebec's Law 25, for example) can be surprisingly difficult.
Cyberattacks happen at any time. So does our availability. Call, text, or start a remote session — same-day response in most cases. Serving all of Canada since 2014.
📍 979 av. de Bourgogne, Sainte-Foy QC · Mail-in repairs accepted Canada-wide
