The Canadian signals intelligence agency that monitors foreign-based cyber threats said New Delhi was most likely already conducting threatening cyber activity against Canadian networks for spying purposes.
A Canadian spy agency has warned that India is using cyber technology to track separatists abroad, a day after the country’s government accused a top Indian official of authorizing violence that included the killing of a Sikh activist in Vancouver.
In a report, Canada’s Communications Security Establishment (CSE) said India was using cyber capabilities “to track and surveil activists and dissidents living abroad” as well as stepping up cyber-attacks against Canadian government networks.
“It is clear that we are seeing India being an emerging [cyber] threat actor,” the CSE chief, Caroline Xavier, told a news conference.
In the report, her agency blamed the rift in bilateral relations between Canada and India for “very likely” driving this activity.
The report notes that after Canada’s accusations, “a pro-India hacktivist group” launched crippling DDoS attacks – flooding a system with online traffic to make it inaccessible to legitimate users – against Canadian websites including the military’s public site.
Ottawa has accused India of orchestrating the 2023 killing in Vancouver of the 45-year-old naturalized Canadian citizen Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a prominent campaigner for “Khalistan”, the fringe separatist movement for an independent Sikh homeland in India’s Punjab state.
