Cyberattack at the CCQ: How Can Your Small Business Reduce Its Risk?
What would you do if your team couldn’t access its tools tomorrow morning? Following the CCQ cyberattack, here are the steps to prioritize and the questions to ask your IT provider to better protect your business.
Your employees arrive on a Monday morning, but they can’t access the tools they need. Customer requests keep coming in. Files are unavailable. Your day has just taken a very different turn. The cyberattack on the Commission de la construction du Québec (CCQ) is a reminder of how disruptive an IT incident can be. In its September 2, 2026 update , the CCQ confirmed that an incident detected on August 24 was linked to a cyberattack. The organization explained that it had shut down its systems as a protective measure and was working to gradually restore services. The information made public does not establish which specific vulnerability led to the attack. It does, however, raise an important question for business owners: what can we do today to better protect our operations? Reducing the risk of a cyberattack means securing access, keeping systems updated, training employees and monitoring unusual activity. Tested backups and an incident response plan help limit the damage if something does happen. These priorities align with guidance from the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security. Here’s how to put them into practice in your business. Secure access to your business systems Your email, files and business applications deserve particular attention. Multifactor authentication, also known as MFA, adds another verification step when someone signs in, helping protect your accounts. The method you choose matters, too. Options such as passkeys and compatible security keys provide phishing-resistant protection that not all authentication methods offer. Your IT team can help determine which options work with your tools. It’s also important to review who can access what. Permissions should reflect each person’s current responsibilities. An employee departure, a role change or the end of a contractor’s assignment should trigger an access review. Administrative privileges should be limited to those who need them. Ask your IT provider: “Which important accounts still lack multifactor a