Heartbleed security bug: Canadian tax services back online
The Canada Revenue Agency says full service has been restored on all of its online systems as of Sunday. A release from the CRA said that “individuals, businesses and representatives are now able to file returns, make payments, and access all other e-services available through the CRA”s website, including all our secure portals.” “Our systems are back online. We apologize for the delay and the inconvenience it has caused to Canadians. That said, the delay was necessary. We could not allow these systems back online until we were fully confident they were safe and secure for Canadian taxpayers,” said CRA Commissioner Andrew Treusch. The agency is also extending the filing deadline for tax returns and promised to resume e-services by the end of the weekend for all federal departments using software vulnerable to the Heartbleed bug. “The Minister of National Revenue has confirmed that interest and penalties will not be applied to individual taxpayers filing their 2013 tax returns after April 30, 2014 for a period equal to the length of this service interruption,” the CRA said in a statement Saturday. This means individual tax returns for 2013 filed by May 5 will not incur penalties or interest. Several department sites had been shut down this week. The directive issued late Thursday ordered the immediate disabling of public websites, calling it a precautionary measure until the “appropriate security patches are in place and tested.” The government did not say how many departments are involved. The Heartbleed bug is caused by a flaw in OpenSSL software, which is commonly used on the Internet to provide security and privacy.
Source: (http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/heartbleed-security-bug-canadian-tax-services-back-online-1.2608781)
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