Published by Canada Revenue Agency Wednesday April 9 at 3pm EST:
The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) places first priority on ensuring the confidentiality of taxpayer information.
After learning late yesterday afternoon about the Internet security vulnerability named the Heartbleed Bug that is affecting systems around the world, the CRA acted quickly, as a preventative measure, to temporarily shut down public access to our online services to safeguard the integrity of the information we hold. Applications affected include online services like EFILE, NETFILE, My Account, My Business Account and Represent a Client.
We are currently working on a remedy for restoring online services and, at this time, anticipate that services will resume over the weekend.
The CRA recognizes that this problem may represent a significant inconvenience for individual Canadians who count on the CRA for online information and services.
Recognizing this, the Minister of National Revenue has confirmed that individual taxpayers will not be penalized for this service interruption.
We continue to investigate any potential impacts to taxpayer information, and to be fully engaged in resolving this matter and restoring online services as soon as possible in a manner that ensures the private information of Canadians remains safe and secure.
We will provide further information and daily updates at 3PM EDT on our home page.