Funded Initiatives

A simple-to-implement and powerful tool that protects your network by adding an extra layer of protection to safeguards you already have in place by:

• Blocking/redirecting users (and bots) from malicious domains such as those that contain malware or are engaged in phishing
• Blocking malware and phishing
• Aggregating threat data to allow/deny traffic based on new intelligence, and
• Facilitating research from new intelligence to identify new threats

CIRA’s off-network protection feature is designed to extend the protection of CIRA’s DNS Firewall to your users’ devices wherever they are accessing the internet beyond your campus network.

By securing laptops, phones and tablets, off-network protection can help you support your faculty and staff in hybrid and remote working and learning environments. The feature is fully deployed in minutes and includes:

• Device-level reporting
• Network management
• Support for all major operating systems

Sector-specific threat intelligence for research and education organizations.

The Threat Feed aggregates and curates threat intelligence from public and private cybersecurity threat feeds into a single block/allow list that you can deploy directly into your existing firewall. It also includes monitoring and reporting services to help identify and mitigate potential threats originating from the dark web. 

The Intrusion Detection System tracks suspicious network behaviour and can find new threats as they emerge.

Organizations that participate in the IDS initiative will be able to select an IDS device that suits their existing infrastructure and receive funding to support the participation of cybersecurity staff in the national IDS collaboration.

A service that assesses and compares higher-ed organizations’ cybersecurity processes and performance to promote evidence-based best practices.

The service includes:

• Benchmarking the cybersecurity performance of Canadian research and education (R&E) organizations
• Continuous security monitoring of participating organizations
• Assessing the cybersecurity performance of vendors

A service that provides an annual, comprehensive assessment of your organization’s cybersecurity capabilities and capacities against the NIST Cybersecurity Framework.

The NCA can:

• identify your organization’s cybersecurity maturity and placement relative to your peers, and identify common, sector-wide strengths and priorities for support.
• identify cybersecurity gaps at the regional and national levels, and guide future cybersecurity investments by the NREN.
• help inform your organization’s cybersecurity plans and investment strategies.