Canadian spy agency says China hacked into National
Research Council computers
The federal government says a “state-sponsored” cyberattack on National Research Council was detected by Canada’s cyber espionage outfit.
The Communications Security Establishment Canada complex is pictured
in Ottawa. The spy agency says In a statement, the government says a
cyber attack on federal government computers came from "a highly
sophisticated Chinese state-sponsored actor."
OTTAWA—The Canadian government took the
unusual step Tuesday of pointing fingers squarely at Beijing after a
cyberattack on a prominent federal scientific research agency.
The federal government’s chief information
officer, Corinne Charette, confirmed Tuesday that the National Research
Council of Canada (NRC) was the target of a cyberattack from a “highly
sophisticated Chinese state-sponsored actor.”
NRC refused to go into any detail about the
attack Tuesday, but in a statement, the agency said it was working to
contain the breach and improve its IT infrastructure — which has been isolated from the broader government network in the wake of an attack.
However, CTV News reported Tuesday night that
NRC president John McDougall, in a conference call to employees, told
them that “any information held in our systems, including employees’
personal information, may have been compromised. Client information and
data may also have been compromised.”
While few cyberattack details have been
released, the governing Conservatives appear certain where it
originated. A spokesman for Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, who was
in Beijing on a trade mission Tuesday, said Baird had a “full and
frank” discussion about the issue with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi.
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“The government takes this issue very
seriously and we are addressing it at the highest levels in both Beijing
and Ottawa,” wrote Adam Hodge, a spokesman for Baird, in an email to
the Star.
Calls to the Chinese Embassy in Ottawa were
not returned Tuesday, but a spokesperson told the CBC that China does
“not accept the groundless allegation of (the) Chinese government’s
involvement in any cyber intrusion or attack.”
According to NRC officials, the breach was
detected by the Communications Security Establishment of Canada (CSEC),
the federal electronic espionage and security agency.
The NRC is one of Ottawa’s research and
development agencies, partnering with industry to develop technologies
designated as of “strategic and economic value” for Canada.
NRC’s research areas include, among other
things, information and communications technology, the aerospace sector
and the energy and mining industries. The agency also researched
security and “disruptive” technologies.
The agency said the incident will affect its
business operations, and said its updated IT system may take a year to
put in place.
In May, the United States laid cyber-espionage charges
against five Chinese military officials. According to U.S. officials,
Chinese military hackers targeted the U.S. nuclear, solar power and
metals industries’ trade secrets.
Jean-Philippe Vergne, an assistant professor
at the Ivey School of Business studying online piracy threats, said
these kinds of state-sponsored attacks have been occurring on a daily
basis for years.
“It’s just a decision on the side of
government organizations to reveal when it’s happening and choose
appropriate times to make it public. But it’s a daily thing,” Vergne
said in an interview Tuesday.
Vergne said the cyber attacks serve two
purposes: to steal whatever secrets they can, and also to test the
capabilities and vulnerabilities of other states’ electronic security.
Canada’s spy service, the Canadian Security
Intelligence Service (CSIS), warned about the growing threat of cyber
attacks in their most recent public report.
“Foreign intelligence agencies use the
Internet to conduct espionage operations, as this is a relatively
low-cost and low-risk way to obtain classified, proprietary or other
sensitive information,” wrote CSIS Director Michel Coulombe in the
agency’s 2011-2013 public report. “There have been a significant number
of attacks against a variety of agencies at the federal, provincial and
even municipal level. The Government of Canada, like those of other
countries, witnesses serious attempts to penetrate its networks on a
daily basis.”
Documents obtained by the Star reveal that
Canada is becoming an increasingly popular target for hackers. In a 2013
report, Public Safety’s Canadian Cyber Incident Response Centre
reported that in the first quarter of that year, Canada saw a
25-per-cent increase in the number of websites hosting malware —
software designed to damage or gain access to other computers.
Citing a Websense study, the agency said the
increase shows that Canada has become a “popular country of choice to
host advanced malware for a number of reasons, including its lack of
takedowns.”
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