List of greatest cyber threats
OTTAWA – Foreign threat actors trying to influence all facets of Canadian life online are now the “new normal” as state-sponsored hackers from China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea are the biggest cyber threats to Canadians, warns the country’s cyber security agency.
“We’re facing two pandemics: obviously the one that we all live with every day in terms of our personal health. But then there’s certainly a cybercrime pandemic out there,” said Scott Jones, head of the Communications Security Establishment’s (CSE) Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, during a press conference Wednesday.
He was commenting on the release of CSE’s second-ever National Cyber Threat Assessment report (NCTA), in which the agency explicitly names for the first time all the countries that pose the greatest cyber danger to Canadians.
“The state-sponsored programs of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea pose the greatest strategic threats to Canada. State-sponsored cyber activity is generally the most sophisticated threat to Canadians and Canadian organizations,” warns the 2020 edition of CSE’s biennial report published Wednesday.
Though the list of threats highlighted in the 2020 report is very similar to the ones reported in 2018, Scott says the biggest difference is “the intensity and level of sophistication” of the threats.
State-sponsored hackers pose all sorts of dangers to Canadian individuals, businesses and govern-ments, ranging from ransomware attacks that cripple IT entire systems, to intellectual property theft, to large data breaches stealing troves of personal data.
But the agency also notes the increasing risk of cyber threat actors trying to attack “critical infrastructure” in Canada, particularly electrical grids.
But the agency says it is “very unlikely” that those same cyber threat actors will actively attempt to disrupt, damage or take over critical infrastructure as long as Canada is not engaged in any interna-tional hostilities.
“We’re certainly not trying to scare people into going off grid by building a cabin in the woods. We’re here to say: let’s tackle this now … before it’s a threat that can become real in the future,” Scott told reporters.
Unfortunately, Scott says that many people and organizations are simply not taking the threats seriously enough to implement basic cyber security measures to protect their data and systems, such as two-factor authentication.
“A trend that continues is that the basics of cybersecurity continue to be the root of most compromises. We are not taking the basics seriously enough, and we’re not doing basic things that need to be done for basic (cybersecurity) hygiene,” Scott warned.
Increasing foreign interference in U.S. elections and online political discourse has also been documented for years now, but Canadians are far from safe from the same threatening forces.
In fact, Canadians should now be wary of the fact that foreign attempts to influence our nation’s discourse are the “new normal,” warns CSE.
“Online foreign influence campaigns are almost certainly ongoing and not limited to key political events like elections. Online foreign influence activities are a new normal, and adversaries seek to influence domestic events as well as impact international discourse related to current events,” the report notes.
“Adversaries use online influence campaigns to attempt to change civil discourse, policymakers’ choices, government relationships, and the reputation of politicians and countries both nationally and globally.”
States may also be trying to “exacerbate existing friction” in societies or even “delegitimize the concept of democracy” if it is contrary to its ideological views, the report adds.
Cyber criminals are also increasingly targeting Canadians’ personal information, either through direct contact scams such as phishing emails or text messages, or by targeting companies with large troves of sensitive data.
The fact that more Canadians than ever work from home and rely on an increasing number of Internet services during the COVID-19 pandemic is also creating more vulnerabilities for hackers and cyber fraudsters to exploit, the report notes.
“Private information is being targeted, and it’s being targeted extensively. We’re seeing dossiers being created about us as individuals that are then being used to then further more cyber activity,” Scott explained.
“We’re seeing private information being a goal of every act and the commercial value to cyber-criminals is high and increasing.”
Cyber criminals are also targeting bigger organizations (which the report refers to as “big game hunting”) because the growing “illegal market for cyber tools and services” makes it easier and more affordable.
The report notes that in the few months between the fourth quarter of 2019 and the first quarter of 2020, the average ransom demand jumped 33 per cent to roughly $148,700.
“You’re seeing cyber threat actors who are able to benefit from what normally in previous years would have been purely in the domain of the state. They have tool sets that are extremely sophisticated,” Scott said.
We’re certainly not trying to scare people into going off grid by building a cabin in the woods. We’re here to say: let’s tackle this now … before it’s a threat that can become real in the future.” Scott Jones Communications Security Establishment’s Canadian Centre for Cyber Security