Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs experienced a “cyber incident” last week that is still under investigation and left the organization without access to certain “internet-based services”, the federal government has confirmed.
In a statement, the Office of the Chief Information Officer and Shared Services Canada said the problem at Global Affairs Canada was detected on January 19.
It was the same day that the Canadian Center for Cyber Security issued a bulletin warning operators of critical infrastructure in Canada to be aware of and take action to mitigate Russian state-sponsored cyber threat activities.
The Communications Security Establishment (CSE), through Cyber Center Canada, said on January 19 that it was aware of foreign cyber threat activity, including Russian-backed actors, targeting Canadian critical infrastructure network operators and their operational and information technologies.
According to the statement released on Monday, mitigation measures have been taken and while “critical services” are still operating, “work is underway” to restore access to services not currently available.
“Cyber threats can arise from system or application vulnerabilities, or from deliberate, persistent and targeted attacks by outside actors to gain access to information,” the government statement said. Both CSE and the Canadian Center for Cyber Security are part of the “ongoing” investigation.
“At this time, there is no indication that other government departments have been affected by this incident,” Monday’s statement said. The federal government has not indicated whether it is aware of the source of the “incident”.
With files from CTV News’ Christy Somos. More soon…
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