Hackers based in Russia may be looking to disrupt Canada’s powerful oil and natural gas sector, especially since Ottawa is a staunch supporter of Ukraine, a news agency said. Canadian spy on Wednesday.
The Communications Security Establishment (CSE) signaled the intelligence agency as saying that Russia has repeatedly sent damaging cyber attacks against its rivals as geopolitical crises escalate.
“We have assessed that there is at least one instance of a disruptive incident in Canada’s oil and gas sector caused by actors aligned with Russia, given their higher risk tolerance, increased numbers and activity , as well as the number of vulnerable. targets in the sector as a whole,” it said in a threat assessment.
Canada is the fourth largest oil producer in the world. The CSE said the oil and gas sector employs about 600,000 people and accounts for 5% of the gross domestic product.
The CSE said the most likely targets of cyber attacks by pro-Russian hackers are operational technology networks that monitor and control large industrial assets.
“It is difficult to overstate the importance of the oil and gas sector to national security because most of our critical
the infrastructure is dependent on oil and gas products,” it said.
The CSE said that Russian-aligned actors are trying to compromise the networks of Canadian critical infrastructure providers, organizations in the oil and gas sector.
“We assess that the purpose of this activity is likely to disrupt critical services for psychological impact, ultimately undermining Canada’s support for Ukraine,” it said.
(Reporting by David Ljunggren; editing by Cynthia Osterman)
Topics
Cyber Russia Canada
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