On Friday morning, a cyberattack attributed to Russian‑speaking hackers disabled the website of the Commission de la construction du Québec (CCQ) and resulted in the theft of personal information belonging to roughly 350,000 individuals. The intrusion was logged at 12:01:53 p.m. Eastern time, prompting the immediate removal of the CCQ’s online portal while technical teams assessed the breach.
The CCQ serves as Quebec’s principal oversight body for the construction sector, responsible for regulating licences, certifications and labour standards across the province. Its online platform provides contractors, workers and the public with access to registration data, training resources and compliance tools. The attack left the site offline, interrupting these services and raising concerns about the security of the data stored on the system.
According to the information available, the hackers succeeded in exfiltrating a database that contains personal details of the 350,000 people linked to the construction industry in Quebec. The nature of the stolen data has not been fully disclosed, but the scale of the breach suggests that names, contact information and possibly employment records could be among the compromised items.
Authorities have not released further specifics about the motives behind the intrusion or the identity of the threat actors beyond the linguistic description of them as Russian‑speaking. The incident adds to a growing pattern of cyber‑espionage targeting governmental and regulatory bodies in Canada.
The CCQ has confirmed that it is working with cybersecurity experts and law‑enforcement agencies to investigate the breach, secure its networks and determine the full extent of the data loss. In the meantime, the organization advises affected individuals to monitor their accounts for unusual activity and to follow any guidance that may be issued as the investigation proceeds.
The outage is expected to remain in place until the CCQ can verify that its systems are free from further compromise and can safely restore public access to its services.