Foreign ownership a threat, CSIS says

Report also identifies risk of cyber-attacks

OTTAWA— Canada’s top spy is sounding the alarm over security threats facing Canada, including radicalized Somali youth, state-owned corporations who snoop on Canadian business interests and cyberattackers who attempt to hack the government’s computer network daily.

Richard Fadden, director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, used the agency’s annual report to issue a pointed warning about the potential risks posed by foreign state-owned companies.

His message comes as the federal government is reviewing a proposal by CNOOC Ltd., a state-owned Chinese firm, to take over Calgarybased Nexen Inc., an oil-and-gas company.

“Certain state-owned enterprises and private firms with close ties to their home governments have pursued opaque agendas or received clandestine intelligence support for their pursuits here,” Fadden says in the report released Thursday.

“When foreign companies with ties to foreign intelligence agencies or hostile governments seek to acquire control over strategic sectors of the Canadian economy, it can represent a threat to Canadian security interests.”

The report covers the period 201011for the spy agency, which employs more than 3,000 people and has a budget of $515 million.

Fadden says that “several” counter-terrorist operations by CSIS and its partners “resulted in the prevention of attacks in Canada.”

He said cyber-attacks mark a growing worry for security analysts and said that serious attempts are being made daily to penetrate the federal government’s computers.

He said mounting attacks over the Internet are a “low-cost and lowrisk” way for foreign intelligence agencies to collect information.

He said Somalia remains a “major” security threat for Canada where the terrorist group Al Shabaab controls significant parts of the country.

“Numerous young Somali-Canadians have travelled to Somalia for terrorist training, a disturbing phenomenon that has also been seen in the U.S. and in other Western countries with a Somali diaspora.”