The Canadian Parliament webpage on a laptop. The federal government is coping with apparent cyberattacks this week. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)
The federal government is coping with cyberattacks this week and a hacker group in India claims it has caused chaos in Ottawa — but Canada’s signals-intelligence agency says the “nuisance” attacks likely haven’t put private information at risk.
The attacks seem to have hit institutions controlled by the government, but not the core infrastructure from which federal departments and agencies operate.
The Canadian Armed Forces says that its website became unavailable to mobile users midday Wednesday, but was fixed within a few hours.
The military says the site is separate from other government sites, such as the one used by the Department of Defence and internal military networks. The incident remains under investigation.
“We have no indication of broader impacts to our systems,” said a statement from spokesperson Andree-Anne Poulin.
Defence Minister Bill Blair confirmed the incident was a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, which is when bots swarm a website with multiple visits and cause it to stop loading properly.
“That’s a very common thing that happens, unfortunately, often. But our cyberofficials and security officials acted very, very quickly,” he said Thursday.
“It was a minor inconvenience and there is further work going on that we will eventually make a determination on.”
Meanwhile, various pages on the House of Commons website are continuing to load slowly or incompletely due to an ongoing DDoS attack that officials say started Monday morning.
“House of Commons systems responded as planned to protect our network and IT infrastructure. However, some websites may be unresponsive for a short period,” spokesperson Amelie Crosson said in a written statement Thursday morning.
India may be softening its stance on Canadian allegations of assassination
2 days ago
Duration1:59
There are signs that India may be softening its stance on the allegations that Indian agents were behind the assassination of Canadian Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, B.C., in June. There have been several instances of Indian officials saying they were open to discussions with Canada, possibly due to pressure from the U.S. and other western governments.
“The House of Commons IT support team, in collaboration with our partners, have implemented mitigating measures and restored services to appropriate service levels. The IT team is still continuously monitoring for such activities.”
She added that Commons administration is helping its Senate colleagues “provide guidance and support them to restore services.”
Elections Canada also affected
Elections Canada also experienced a denial-of-service attack that lasted about an hour and started around midnight early Wednesday, Ottawa time.
“This website does not host any sensitive data or information. It is separate from our main website, elections.ca, and is hosted by an external service provider. It is in no way connected to the network that supports elections.ca,” the agency said in a media statement.
“Our systems are monitored in real time both internally, and by the Canadian Cyber Security Centre, enabling us to quickly detect any anomalies on our platforms and systems. They are aware of the incident.”
The Canadian Cyber Security Centre is under the umbrella of the Communications Security Establishment (CSE), Canada’s signals-intelligence agency. The CSE said it generally doesn’t confirm specific incidents and focuses on the type of behaviour, rather than attributing attacks.
“In general, DDoS activity is a nuisance event that very rarely puts information at risk and has no permanent impact on systems,” said spokesperson Ryan Foreman.
“Geopolitical events often result in an increase in disruptive cyber campaigns. We continue to monitor for any developing cyber threats and share threat information with our partners and stakeholders to help prevent incidents.”
The centre warned on Sept. 15 of “several” DDoS campaigns “over the last few days” targeting Ottawa, the provinces and the financial and transportation sectors. It renewed that warning on Sept. 22 as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited Canada.
Meanwhile, the Ottawa Hospital said it experienced “a brief interruption on our external websites” Tuesday morning, but no systems were breached. “The sites were quickly up and running and we are investigating the nature of the outage,” spokesperson Rebecca Abelson wrote.
Indian hacking group claims responsibility
A hacking group called Indian Cyber Force has claimed responsibility for the incident involving the military, and appears to have managed to infiltrate a handful of websites owned by small businesses in Canada.
The group made reference to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau telling Parliament on Sept. 18 that there were “credible allegations” of Indian involvement in the killing of Sikh independence activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who had been wanted by India for years and was gunned down in June outside the temple he led.
A sign calling for an investigation of India’s alleged role in the killing of Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar is displayed at the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara temple in Surrey, British Columbia on September 20, 2023. (Chris Helgren/Reuters)
The hacking group has posted multiple versions of a message riddled with spelling and grammatical errors onto websites of restaurants and medical clinics.
The affected sites show a message on a black background with green digits, similar to the film “The Matrix,” as warlike music plays.
The message described Canada as a haven for terrorists — a “heaven hub,” it said in butchered English — and similarly insulted Sikh separatists.
It also criticized Trudeau for “throwing something without any prove,” or proof.
The hacking group also claimed to have taken down the Global Affairs Canada website for travel advisories, but the department insists this hasn’t happened. The group deleted that claim from its account on the social-media application Telegram.
News of the attacks came as questions abound over Indian officials’ level of co-operation with Canadian officials regarding Trudeau’s allegations — and to what extent allies such as the United States were advocating on Canada’s behalf.
On Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with India’s foreign-affairs minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.
Neither of them made mention of the controversy in Canada when they emerged briefly to pose for photos before their meeting began.
During a State Department briefing prior to that meeting, spokesperson Matthew Miller refused to speculate on what the secretary would tell Jaishankar directly.
“What I will say, however, is we have consistently engaged with the Indian government on this question and have urged them to co-operate, and that engagement and urging them to co-operate will continue,” Miller said.
“We urge them to co-operate with the Canadian investigation.”
Miller flatly refused comment when asked about a television interview last week with U.S. Ambassador to Canada David Cohen, who confirmed that Canada received intelligence from one of its Five Eyes security partners.
“I am not going to speak to intelligence matters from the podium.”
VANCOUVER – The Pivot Legal Society and the BC Civil Liberties Association say they’ve launched three complaints against the Vancouver Police Department alleging illegal surveillance and police brutality against pro-Palestine protesters.
The association and the society say the complaints stem from the “violent dispersal” of protesters who demonstrated at a Vancouver rail crossing in May.
In a statement, the groups say the two “service and policy” complaints to the Vancouver Police Board involve police actions against “pro-Palestine demonstrators,” where they were allegedly met with “extensive forms of policing violence” and unlawful surveillance tactics through the use of police drones and officer smartphones.
They say another complaint to the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner involves VPD Const. Dimitri Sheinerman, who is facing a Police Act investigation after he was photographed with an Israeli flag patch on his uniform with a “punisher” skull.
The groups say the police force has “allowed anti-Palestinian racism to persist within its ranks,” and actions against demonstrators have violated their Charter rights to freedom of expression.
Meghan McDermott, BC Civil Liberties Association policy director, says there have been “systemic rights violations” against people demonstrating for Palestinian human rights due to police bias and “undemocratic practices.”
The Vancouver Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the complaints.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024.
OTTAWA – A Conservative MP who was targeted by Beijing told a federal inquiry today that Canada has become “a playground” for foreign interference.
Michael Chong, the Tory foreign affairs critic, said the federal government should shed its culture of secrecy and release more information about threats to better inform the public.
Chong said while the vast majority of intelligence must remain secret, keeping too much information under wraps results in leaks that undermine institutions.
In May 2023, the federal government confirmed a media report that Canada’s spy service had information in 2021 that the Chinese government was looking at ways to intimidate Chong and his relatives in Hong Kong.
Global Affairs Canada said in August 2023 it believed that Chong had been the victim of a foreign smear campaign, which the department suspected was conducted by Beijing.
The department said a co-ordinated network of news accounts on the social-media app WeChat posted a large volume of false or misleading narratives about Chong from May 4 to 13 of that year.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024.
MONTREAL – One expert says entry-level pay under the tentative deal between Air Canada and its pilots could be a stumbling block ahead of a union vote on the agreement.
Under their current contract, pilots earn far less in their first four years at the company before enjoying a big wage increase starting in year five.
The Air Line Pilots Association had been pushing to scrap the so-called “fixed rate” provision entirely.
But according to a copy of the contract summary obtained by The Canadian Press, the proposed deal announced Sunday would merely cut the four-year period of lower pay to two years.
John Gradek, who teaches aviation management at McGill University, says as many as 2,000 of Air Canada’s roughly 5,200 active pilots may earn entry-level wages following a recent hiring surge.
After the airline averted a strike this week, Gradek says the failure to ditch the pay grade restrictions could prompt pushback from rank-and-file flight crew and jeopardize the deal, which is up for a vote next month.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 18, 2024.
