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March 13, 2023

Swimming Canada Cyber Attack Updates

News

Latest Update - March 29

March 29, 2023

Swim Ontario recognizes and is appreciative of all of the extra work involved by clubs with respect to updating and re-inputting RTR registration information for all of our participants.

As a way of saying thank you for the considerable time and effort needed to make these updates, CEO, Dean Boles, and the Swim Ontario Board have approved a one-time “cyber breach payment” to Swim Ontario member clubs.

As a guide, each member club will receive a cheque of between of $600.00 and of $3000.00 based on a formula proportionate to their affiliation fees.

Cheques will be sent to clubs once the following has been completed:

  1. All swimmers, coaches and officials have a Registered/Active status. All Account Pending participants must complete the consents again to obtain the registered status
  2. Missing swimmers, coaches and officials have been re-registered
  3. All invoices have been paid

Once all of the above are completed club registrars should contact Heather to request cheque to be released.

The deadline for cheque requests is 11:59 pm, May 15, 2023

As a friendly reminder to clubs, it is a condition of insurance coverage that all participants (swimmers, coaches, & officials) are properly registered.

March 17, 2023

March 13, 2023

  • The Interim Officials Registration Process is now closed.

March 7, 2023

  • Beginning March 7, Meet Managers can upload meet results via the RTR (as per usual) for their sanctions.
  • All entries must now be uploaded through the RTR. This is manadatory. Meet Managers are not to accept entry files via email.
  • Swimmers and coaches must re-do their consent forms if their account is not at "registered" status. See Feb 21 and Feb 28 updates for details.
  • Due to the Swimming Canada events and results pages not yet returned, clubs and coaches can get information on Ontario sanctions - including entry upload link HERE

February 28, 2023

Thank you for your continued support in regards to the RTR system outage. Swimmer registration is going well, and we continue to receive updates on procedure from Swimming Canada.

Meet Sanctions

Sanction Applications

The interim sanction process is now closed, including the interim meet results process.

Between now and March 7, Swimming Canada will load all meets that were sanctioned via the interim process to the RTR.

The following can be done in the RTR starting March 7:

  • Club Registrars can re-activate Meet Manager accounts.
    • Please do not login until March 7.
  • New Sanction applications
    • Any sanction applications received before March 7 will be denied.

Meet Entries

For meets occurring now until March 6, entries can be emailed directly to the meet manager.

For meets after March 7:

  • Meet entries must be uploaded through the RTR
  • Clubs will need to re-submit their entries via the RTR
    • Meet Managers are asked to no longer accept entries via email.
  • Having entries managed through the RTR will avoid the multiple errors that could occur with incorrect swimmer name, DOB or ID and will catch any Account Pending swimmers, prompting the family to complete the consent forms.

Meet Results

The interim meet results process is now closed. At this time, results cannot be uploaded to the RTR. A date for when results can be uploaded via the RTR will be provided as soon as Swim Ontario is made aware.

  • Please do not upload results until further notice.

Re-sanctions/Revisions

  • Anyone that have revisions/adjustments to their approved sanctioned can do so beginning March 7.
  • Revised meet packages will be uploaded to the RTR and sanctions adjusted accordingly.

Coaches

Please stop using the interim process for coach registration. Clubs can register new coaches directly in the RTR. Coaches who were registered during the interim period as of February 27 should be uploaded into the RTR today. If any of the coaches that you registered via the interim method are missing from the RTR on March 1, please contact Lindsay.

Invoice Pending
Please review invoice pending coaches and generate the invoice if the coach was registered this season. Swim Ontario and CSCA will be reviewing these invoices and marking ones off that have already been paid this season as paid. If a coach was part of an import please ensure there are not duplicate coach accounts. Contact support@swimming.ca if coaches need to be merged.

CSCA Account Pending
CSCA will be sending out an email blast later this week to all coaches who need to complete their CSCA screening. Clubs/PSOs can also send the CSCA screening link directly to coaches.

Requirements not met
Most of the coaches in the RTR will be sitting at this status. Similar to swimmers, coaches will be required to resign forms in the RTR. Coaches who have met their PSO requirements but need to resign the forms will have a red checkmark under the requirements column. Coaches with a red X under the column are missing PSO requirements and may need to sign the forms.

Clubs can use the attached communication for coaches to login to their account and complete forms and/or CSCA screening.

Swimmers

Account Pending Swimmers
These swimmers need to login and complete their consent forms. Instructions on how families can do this can be found HERE.

Missing Swimmers
Previously registered swimmers who do not appear on your roster must be re-registered. Please only put missing previously paid swimmers on an invoice. Provide the original Invoice # they were on and Heather will cross check payment has been received then mark the new invoice paid. These swimmers will have to re-do the consents.

February 21, 2023

The RTR will reopen for Club Registrars for Swimmer Registrations on Wednesday February 22. Registrars will receive an email when their accounts have been reactivated.

READ THIS DOCUMENT ABOUT STEPS THAT NEED TO BE TAKEN ONCE ACCESS HAS BEEN GRANTED ON THE 22ND.

A summary of the items that will need to be completed are:

  1. Login and Change Password
  2. Check/Update Club Info
  3. Check Swimmer List and Update Outstanding Information
  4. Swimmer Acknowledgement Forms Signatures
  5. Registrations, Invoicing, Upgrades and Transfers for new swimmers can resume
    - Do not resubmit registrations, invoices, upgrades, or transfers for swimmers submitted in the interim procedure
  6. DO NOT DO REGISTRATIONS FOR ANYONE OTHER THAN SWIMMERS IN THE RTR.

We continue to thank you for your continued support and patience during this time.

February 16, 2023

Please read the below update from Swimming Canada in regards to the third-party cybersecurity incident.

Important Notes:

  • There will be a return to the RTR starting next week on a gradual basis, beginning with Swimmer Registration.
  • Interim Swimmer Registration is CLOSED as of 1 pm February 16, 2023. Do not submit any more Swimmer Interim Registration spreadsheets or ask families to complete swimmer consent forms. The swimmer consent forms have been disabled.
  • Swimmer Registration will start again next week with the reopening of the RTR. Please do not email asking for access. Registrars will be granted access as soon as the system is back online (tentatively Wednesday, Feb 22). They will receive an email to activate their account when it is ready.
  • Step-by-step instructions will be provided next week as to what needs to be done to update swimmer accounts and proceed with new registrations.
  • Sanctions, Coaches and Officials can continue with their interim processes

Thank you for your understanding and patience during this time.


Swimming Canada Statement

Third-party cybersecurity incident: System Recovery Update

Thank you again to the entire swimming community for your support and patience as we continue to investigate the scope and nature of the recent third-party cybersecurity incident and its impact on our systems, including our registration system.

Swimming Canada has continued to work with the provincial sections to implement interim operational measures for meets, swimmer and coach registration and NCCP coach certification processes.

We are pleased to share that we are ready to move to the next phase of our recovery efforts with a return to a live registration system next week. This will be a staged approach, with the national office having access to the live system first, followed by the provincial sections and then to the club level. We expect this to begin on Tuesday with the national office and provincial sections. This staged approach is required to ensure our registrant data is built back in a systematic way. We anticipate there will be some bugs and duplicate accounts that will need to be resolved and we appreciate your patience as we work through this.

Step-by-step guides will be provided next week, once the system is live, to provide instructions on what needs to be done by the various groups in order to complete the registration process. This may require updating information including email addresses, gender and the signing/acknowledgement of registration forms. We are recommending that all users reset their password once access to their account is available.

Initially, meet sanctioning, meet lists and results will continue with the existing interim processes and the Learning Management System will not be available. We expect these features will go live within a few weeks as we recover more of our registrant data.

Swimming Canada has also continued to work with our third-party service providers to implement additional security measures to ensure that our data is protected and that regular back-ups are taken and secured.

Swimming Canada thanks the provincial sections and all of our members as we continue to work back to normal operations. The protection of your information remains a top priority. We are taking this opportunity to improve our data handling practices wherever possible and are implementing additional protections with the re-launch of the registration system.

Sincerely,

Ahmed El-Awadi
CEO, Swimming Canada

January 24, 2023

Third-party cybersecurity incident: Important update and next steps from Swimming Canada

Thank you to the entire swimming community for your support and patience as we continue to assess the scope and nature of the recent third-party cybersecurity incident’s impact on our registration system.

First off, a big thank you to the provincial sections who have been working closely with us to develop operational plans. Swim meets have continued to happen as we have worked with our partners to implement procedures and processes including interim meet entry, meet sanctioning and results processing. We are also working on developing interim registration processes for new members and swimmer upgrades, and identifying what can be done within the Learning Management System (LMS) for coach and officials education.

Here is what we know about the scope and nature of the incident thus far:

  • On Jan. 16, we discovered a cybersecurity incident affecting a third-party service provider that hosts some of Swimming Canada’s data. The hosted data includes personal profiles of members, coaches and officials as well as historical results from competitive events. It did not include any financial information such as credit card details; Swimming Canada does not store this type of data.
  • Upon detection of this incident, we undertook immediate measures to verify the integrity of Swimming Canada’s network. We engaged a leading cybersecurity forensic investigator and external counsel to assist in the investigation and recovery from this incident.
  • The incident appears to have been limited to the third-party service provider’s network. There is no indication that Swimming Canada’s network was compromised.
  • We understand that our service provider’s investigation is ongoing, as is the investigation we are conducting on our own infrastructure. We have no evidence to suggest that any personal information has been accessed. If that understanding changes as we gain further insight into this matter, we will alert affected individuals as soon as possible.
  • We have reported the incident to the RCMP’s National Cybercrime Coordination Centre and the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security.
  • We have had multiple communication touchpoints with our provincial section leaders, and made a short public statement as we continued to assess the situation.
  • All of Swimming Canada’s data up to Sept. 20, 2022 has been recovered through a back-up.
  • We have created an email address to help answer questions regarding the cybersecurity incident and any privacy concerns of our members: privacy@swimming.ca. (Response times are estimated at 48 hours.)

Having access to the backup is good news. We still have work to do to restore our systems to full functionality. We will continue working closely with the provincial sections to develop interim operational processes to keep our business and sport moving forward, while working to update the data in our systems as quickly as possible. We will continue to share information with the community as it becomes available.

This event was unexpected and caused a significant impact to our operations, but this is not the first time we’ve managed a crisis working together with our partners. Not too long ago the global COVID-19 pandemic essentially halted our operations almost overnight. We found a way to come out the other side more resilient than we were before, and we believe the same story will unfold here. Throughout this past week we have once again seen the resilience of our community as we have collaborated with our provincial partners to implement new plans and make sure swim meets keep running across the country.

We will continue to work together and we will once again come out of this stronger than ever.

Sincerely,

Ahmed El-Awadi, Swimming Canada CEO


January 20, 2023

Swim Ontario has been given permission from Swimming Canada to share the following information:

Swimming Canada currently has no evidence to suggest that there has been any access or theft in relation to any personal information (swimmers, coaches and officials) including name, address, date of birth, and parent or guardian name and contact information stored on the system. To the extent that understanding changes as further insight into this matter is gained, Swimming Canada will alert all affected individuals immediately.

Swimming Canada is working to further secure their systems and recover the data hosted by their service provider as quickly as possible. They have been advised that restoration from a recent backup of the data will be taking place in the coming days, at which point they will be able to reassess what remains to be recovered and their options for doing so.

Swim Ontario reminds its member clubs of their duty to keep the registrants (swimmers, coaches, officials and volunteers) informed of this issue. Both the January 18 message from Swimming Canada, and the January 19 message from Swim Ontario can be found below this message.

Please direct any questions you may have as follows:

January 19, 2023

As was previously communicated, Swimming Canada’s service provider recently experienced a cyber-attack that has affected access to the Registration, Tracking and Results system (RTR), as well as the Learning Management System (LMS). An investigation by cyber crimes professionals is currently underway.

Swim Ontario has been advised by Swimming Canada that the data contained within the RTR and LMS did not contain any credit card, passport or health card information.

Swim Ontario staff is working with Swimming Canada and our colleagues from the other provincial swim offices to create workable, interim solutions for those processes affected by the attack.

Swim Ontario will communicate directly to the clubs, coaches, and meet managers later this afternoon regarding the solutions necessary for the management of competitions. Look for email correspondence from Nicole Parent and/or Lindsay Taylor.

Solutions for the other issues (registration, upgrades, transfers, officials, clinics, etc.) will be put in place in the coming days and we will communicate those as we receive them from Swimming Canada.

These systems are an integral part of both our daily workflow and sport infrastructure. Your patience is appreciated as these interim processes will inadvertently slow down the normal pace of Swim Ontario operations.

We thank you for your understanding of this situation. We will keep you informed as we receive updates from Swimming Canada.

GENERAL CYBER-SAFETY INFORMATION

As always, you should be vigilant with respect to the widespread risk of cyber attacks. We recommend the following best practices related to the protection of personal information for individuals:

  • regularly update your online passwords and use complex and unique passwords;
  • be cautious of any unsolicited communications (phone call, email, letter, SMS) that ask for your personal information or refer you to a web page asking for personal information;
  • avoid clicking on links or downloading attachments from suspicious emails;
  • report an incident to the appropriate authorities if you notice any suspicious activity; and
  • here is a link to some additional resources for Individuals from the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security.

https://cyber.gc.ca/en/individuals

January 18, 2023

Statement from Swimming Canada CEO, Ahmed El-Awadi

We were recently informed by our service provider that they had experienced a cyber attack, which is preventing us and all their other clients from accessing certain systems. We immediately initiated our cyber incident response plan and our security consultants are investigating the scope and nature of the incident on Swimming Canada. We are working diligently with the service provider and our consultants to get our systems up and running as quickly and securely as possible but do not have an exact timeline for services to be available to our users. Swimming Canada is engaging with relevant government authorities and law enforcement have been informed of the incident. Thank you for your patience during this time and on behalf of Swimming Canada, I apologize for any inconvenience this has caused. To the extent we have further updates, we will make sure to update you accordingly.