Indigenous Owned Cybersecurity Partnership Launched to Defend Canada’s Critical Systems in the AI Era

Press Release

Steel River Group and Korland Inc. unite Indigenous leadership with frontline operational technology security to address a national exposure that AI is making worse, not better.

CALGARY, Alberta — May 5th, 2026 — Steel River Group and Korland Inc. today launched a strategic partnership that establishes a unique Indigenous owned national cybersecurity capability built for the AI era. The partnership is designed to protect critical infrastructure, Indigenous Nations, and support Canadian enterprises from a threat environment that is moving faster than most organizations can defend against, whilst providing am Indigenous procurement resolution.

The threat has changed. Most defences have not.

Artificial intelligence has rewritten the rules of cyber attack and cyber defence in under eighteen months. Adversaries now use AI to industrialize phishing, generate convincing deepfakes of executives, accelerate vulnerability discovery, and run autonomous attack chains.

At the same time, every Canadian organization implementing AI in operations, finance, customer service, or industrial control is expanding its own attack surface, often without the security maturity to match.

The exposure is national:

• Ransomware against hospitals, municipalities, and Indigenous governments has grown year over year.

• State sponsored actors are targeting energy, water, transportation, and resource sector operational technology.

• Indigenous Nations hold sensitive data across health, child and family services, lands, finance, and governance, often without consistent access to enterprise grade defence.

Canada’s National Cyber Security Strategy calls for a whole of society response and names Indigenous communities as partners in national cyber resilience.

What the partnership delivers

By combining Korland Inc.’s enterprise and operational technology cybersecurity expertise with Steel River Group’s Indigenous owned leadership, nation to nation relationships, and execution platform, the partnership offers integrated services across the full security lifecycle: assessment, architecture, OT and IT defence, incident response, AI risk and governance, data sovereignty, training, and long term capacity building.

The model is built to serve three audiences at once:

• Indigenous Nations and Indigenous owned enterprises. Sovereign, community aligned cybersecurity that respects governance, supports data ownership, and builds capability that stays inside the community.

• Critical infrastructure operators. Energy, utilities, transportation, and resource sector clients who need OT security delivered with Indigenous procurement alignment and a partnership built for the long term.

• Corporate Canada and alliance partners. Organizations preparing for an AI accelerated threat landscape who require a partner that brings both technical depth and the relationships that come with Indigenous ownership.

A direct question for every board and executive team

In a 2026 threat environment, every Canadian board should be able to answer three questions this quarter:

• Can our defences withstand AI accelerated attacks against our people, our systems, and our supply chain?

• Have we secured the AI we are deploying inside our own operations, or have we expanded our attack surface without expanding our defences?

• Do our partnerships and procurement reflect the Indigenous economic participation now expected in federal contracts and major capital projects?

Most organizations cannot answer all three with confidence. This partnership exists to change that.

Statements from leadership

Cybersecurity is no longer someone else’s problem. All companies, individuals and especially communities hold data that demands the same protection as any major institution or governments, and AI is closing the window on organizations that have been postponing this work. This partnership puts Indigenous ownership at the centre of national cyber resilience.

— Trent Fequet, CEO, Steel River Group

Critical infrastructure runs on operational technology that historically was not designed for the threat environment we now face. Pairing Korland’s OT and enterprise security depth with Steel River Group’s leadership and reach means the organizations who need this most can now access it through a partnership built for Canada.

— Rob Corbett, CEO, Korland Inc.

About Steel River Group

Steel River Group is an Indigenous owned management and development company headquartered in Calgary and operating nationally. Led by CEO Trent Fequet, Steel River Group delivers major project advisory, capacity building, partnership development, and economic growth solutions for Indigenous Nations, industry, government, and corporate partners across Canada.

About Korland Inc.

Korland Inc. is a Calgary based cybersecurity consulting firm led by CEO Rob Corbett, specializing in enterprise and Operational Technology (OT) security for critical infrastructure across North America.

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