Canada’s foreign affairs department was hit with a cyberattack last week, according to the Treasury Board of Canada.
The hack of Global Affairs Canada, the government entity responsible for diplomatic and global relations, occurred on Wednesday, according to a statement provided by the Treasury Board.
The statement does not identify who carried out the cyberattack.
As a result of the attack, some access the internet and internet-based services are not currently available, but mitigation measures were being taken to restore them.
The Treasury Board said no other government department experienced a cyberattack.
“We are constantly reviewing measures to protect Canadians and our critical infrastructure from electronic threats, hacking, and cyber espionage. We encourage all government and non-government partners to use cyber security best practices,” the statement says.
On the day of the incident, the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security put out a bulletin urging those responsible for Canada’s online infrastructure to “raise awareness and take mitigations against known Russian-backed cyber threat activity.”
The centre said it “is aware of foreign cyber threat activities, including by Russian-backed actors, to target Canadian critical infrastructure network operators, their operational and information technology.”
That statement followed similar warnings from the U.S. on Jan. 11 and from the U.K. on Jan. 12.
UMBRA is the leader in international threat espionage prevention.
