The financial impact is real. Canadians reported $704 million in fraud losses to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre in 2025 — the highest figure on record. Phishing and spear-phishing remain among the most frequently reported categories, and the true total is almost certainly several times higher because only a small percentage of incidents are ever reported.

Why Ontario? Why Now?

Several factors keep Ontario in the crosshairs. The province’s dense concentration of businesses and government institutions makes it an attractive target. Remote and hybrid work have expanded the attack surface. Economic uncertainty and the easy availability of AI tools that generate convincing, personalized lures have lowered the barrier for attackers. Ontario residents also receive some of the highest daily volumes of spam and scam contacts in the country.

Prevention: A Multi-Layered Defence Is Essential

The good news is that Ontario businesses and government agencies can fight back. Here are practical steps I recommend:

Educate and Empower Staff
Human error remains the weakest link. Regular training on red flags — urgent demands, unfamiliar senders, suspicious links — turns employees into a first line of defence. Simulated phishing exercises keep awareness sharp.

Leverage Advanced Email Filters
Deploy modern solutions with AI-driven detection. Keep filters updated so they can counter evolving tactics.

Secure the Infrastructure
Implement email authentication (DMARC, SPF, DKIM) to reduce spoofing. Keep software and firewalls current.

Implement Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
Even if credentials are stolen, MFA creates a critical extra barrier — especially for sensitive accounts.

Verify Before You Trust
If an email claims to be from a colleague or agency, confirm it through a separate channel such as a phone call. Government agencies should continue publicizing official contact methods.

Report and Collaborate
Report incidents to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre and share threat intelligence with local IT teams and partners. Collective reporting strengthens everyone’s defences.

It’s not a technical battle; it’s a societal one. We can reclaim Ontario’s digital frontier from the phishing flood by arming ourselves with knowledge, technology, and vigilance. The time to act is before the next wave hits or you fall victim.

The ongoing wars in Ukraine and Israel, combined with economic upheaval in the United States, likely contribute to the rising number of phishing and spam attacks. However, direct causation is hard to pin down without comprehensive data tying specific incidents to these events. These crises create fertile ground for cybercriminals to exploit, amplifying the volume and sophistication of digital attacks. Whether this qualifies as “digital warfare” depends on the lens you apply—some of it aligns with coordinated cyber conflict, while much remains an opportunistic crime.

Cybercriminals have historically leveraged global conflicts like the Russia-Ukraine war and the Israel-Hamas conflict. For instance, during the Ukraine war, phishing campaigns spiked, with Russian state-backed actors increasing targeting of Ukrainian users by 250% in 2022 compared to 2020, and NATO countries seeing a 300% jump, according to Google’s Threat Analysis Group. Many attacks used war-related lures—like fake donation pleas or military-themed emails—to deploy malware or steal credentials. Similarly, the Israel-Hamas conflict saw hacktivist groups, including some tied to Russia, launch phishing and DDoS attacks, often piggybacking on the crisis to scam users or disrupt services, as noted by Bitdefender and TIME in 2023. These events don’t just inspire state-sponsored cyber operations; they also embolden independent actors to capitalize on chaos and public anxiety.

Economic upheaval in the U.S. adds another layer. Inflation, job losses, and financial uncertainty—evident in 2022’s bear market and oil price swings tied to sanctions—make people more vulnerable to scams promising quick relief, like fake investment schemes or job offers. The World Bank and IMF flagged how such instability, compounded by global shocks like Ukraine, strains economies, driving up desperation that scammers exploit. In Ontario, where phishing and Spam are reportedly surging as of April 2025, economic pressures could mirror this U.S. trend, especially as businesses and government agencies digitize further, expanding the attack surface.

Is this digital warfare? Partially. State actors, like Russia’s APT28 or Iran’s MuddyWater, use phishing as a weapon in broader geopolitical strategies—think disrupting Ukrainian infrastructure or targeting Israeli organizations – fits the “warfare” tactic: deliberate, tactical, and tied to physical conflicts. However, the bulk of phishing and Spam is still financially motivated, not ideological. Opportunistic cybercriminals—running ransomware or crypto scams—thrive in these crises’ confusion, not as soldiers in a digital army but as profiteers. The line blurs when hacktivists or loosely aligned groups, like Killnet or Anonymous Sudan, join in, blending activism with crime.

No complex numbers tie Ontario’s specific increase to these global events, but the pattern holds: crises amplify cyber threats. The Ukraine war’s cyber fallout, Israel’s regional tensions, and U.S. economic stress collectively churn the waters—some attackers fish with precision, others cast wide nets. It’s a mix of warfare and hustle, supercharged by a world on edge.