Geopolitical Cyber Incidents in Canada : 2024 Assessment

Par Frédérick Gagnon, Fanny Tan, Alexis Rapin, Danny Gagné
Un rapport de l'Observatoire des conflits multidimensionnels de la Chaire Raoul-Dandurand | UQAM
In a world where geopolitical tensions appear to be on the rise, Canada may seem relatively unaffected by the events that have shaken the international scene over the course of 2023. However, from the continuing conflict in Ukraine to Israel's military intervention in Gaza, cyberspace has become a channel through which global conflict increasingly affects the daily lives of Canadians. From data theft to denial-of-service attacks and influence operations, several recent cyber incidents show that distance and oceans are no longer quite the geopolitical bulwarks Canada has long taken for granted.
In this respect, the analysis carried out as part of this report identified (with no claim to exhaustivity) no less than 16 geopolitical cyber incidents in 2023 in Canada, the highest annual total in our data set so far. However, this data comes from open sources only, and therefore is likely to reflect only a fraction of the malicious digital activity taking place in the country. In total, the Raoul Dandurand Chair’s directory of Canadian cyber incidents, from which the data in this report is derived, now lists 114 geopolitical cyber incidents that have affected Canada since 2010. What do we know about these incidents, their nature, their targets and their origins?
Mai 2024En savoir plus