Canada developing cyberweapons

OTTAWA— Canada plans to take steps to “strengthen” its cyberwarfare arsenal, according to documents released by the Department of National Defence.

The documents are a rare public admission from National Defence that it is developing offensive cyberweapons in addition to tools to defend against such attacks.

“Cyber . . . (is) increasingly prominent among the security and defence challenges facing Canada and its allies,” read the documents, posted to the department’s website.

“(In 2017) we will advance our research in the future of cyber warfare to improve and strengthen both our defensive and offensive capabilities.”

There is some debate over what actually constitutes a “cyberweapon” or an act of “cyber war.”

The most commonly cited example is a virus dubbed Stuxnet, widely attributed to the United States, which in 2010 sabotaged Iran’s nuclear program before spreading to the wider Internet.

When it comes to cyber warfare, the Canadian government typically likes to talk about defence more than offensive capabilities. But that appears to be changing, with former members of Canada’s defence and intelligence agencies openly musing about future cyber war.

In an interview with Postmedia this month, Brig.-Gen Paul Rutherford said Canada will be sending “cyber warriors” to Latvia this June to protect that country’s networks from Russian cyberattacks.

“First and foremost, we recognize cyber as a domain of warfare,” Rutherford told Postmedia.

“We want to bring people into the trade to become what I call cyber warriors.”

The documents posted by the department state the Canadian Forces will create a new military occupation called “Cyber Operators” to bring in employees with the skills required to conduct complex cyberattacks and defence.

“It’s maybe about time,” said Alex Wilner, a professor of international affairs at Carleton University.

“I think implicitly what (National Defence) is saying here is that in Canada, we see the cyber domain as a military domain. That’s the way the Americans see it, that’s the way the Russians see it.”

Other academics studying these issues stress that caution is needed before Canada fully embraces cyber warfare — and note the challenges in even defining what “cyber war” is.

“Cyber war is challenging all of our previously held notions of warfare,” said Stephanie Carvin, a former intelligence analyst who also teaches at Carleton. “Who is and isn’t a combatant? What is an armed attack?”

The department raised the question of cyber warfare in their sweeping Defence Review project, the results of which are expected later this year.