Laval has built one of Québec's best-known life sciences hubs. The Cité de la Biotech, an initiative of Laval's economic development office, reports more than 120 biotech and life sciences companies and over 5,500 jobs within a 3-kilometre radius. Its tenants include INRS's Centre Armand-Frappier Santé Biotechnologie and Moderna, whose Laval plant produced the very first Canadian-made doses of its mRNA vaccine, as the Government of Canada announced in September 2025.
Around those big names are dozens of smaller firms: contract labs, equipment and supply distributors, incubated startups, service providers. And Laval is more than biotech. According to Québec's statistics institute, manufacturing was the city's largest sector in 2022, followed by wholesale trade, health care, retail and professional services (ranking excludes finance and real estate).
What attackers look for in a Laval business
Research data and intellectual property. In life sciences, the data is worth more than the computers: study results, methods, files entrusted by sponsors. Ransomware on a lab server can wipe out weeks of work, and a leak can end a client relationship. Lab instruments add a twist: they are often driven by PCs whose operating system can't be updated without the manufacturer's blessing, which makes Windows 10 end of support a pressing issue.
Distribution payments. Wholesale means hundreds of suppliers, recurring invoices and daily payments. That is exactly where vendor banking change fraud thrives: a convincing email, a "new account" and a payment that lands with the fraudster.
Plants and stores. For manufacturers, the real risk is downtime, even when the attack only hits the office; our guide to manufacturing and OT security explains how to keep the two apart. Retailers face different targets, from payment terminals to online stores and social media accounts; see our retail and e-commerce guide.
Health information. Medical, dental, physiotherapy and optometry clinics hold some of the most sensitive data under Law 25. Our article on clinics and health professionals sets out the priorities.
How the on-site visit works in Laval
Laval is in our service area, so the on-site visit is free. After a 15-minute call, the person who would actually run your audit spends an hour with you and your IT lead or provider. We walk through the server room, the Wi-Fi, the workstations and, in a lab, the instrument PCs. You then get a written summary of your three priorities. Nothing is actively tested and we don't touch your systems.
To make the most of the hour, bring what you have:
- a list of your main software and cloud services
- your latest cyber insurance questionnaire, if any
- the name of your person in charge of privacy (Law 25)
- a list of instruments or equipment connected to the network
Our services for Laval businesses
Two engagements come up often. A cybersecurity audit gives you the full picture, from governance to backups, with a prioritized action plan. Our Law 25 compliance service is built for businesses that hold a lot of personal information, such as clinics, labs and distributors managing customer accounts: incident register, reporting procedure, privacy impact assessments and security measures.
Fictional example: a Laval medical supply distributor
A 30-person distributor of lab and medical supplies nearly pays a large supplier invoice into a fraudster's account after a supplier "changes banks" by email. A call to the supplier's usual number stops the payment. The on-site visit then shows why the fraudster knew the timing so well: the shared accounts-payable mailbox has no MFA, the ERP vendor connects through remote access software that is always on, and customer files containing clinic contacts sit in a folder anyone can open. The plan: MFA on every mailbox, a written callback procedure for banking changes, vendor access enabled on request only, and tighter permissions on customer files. This scenario is made up for illustration.