Russia/China: The Canadian Intelligence Community has identified a campaign by what they are referring to as foreign threat actors to influence the upcoming federal elections, which are to take place in October. The current statement from the Canadian government is a bit vague on the details. What has been said so far is that the campaign is looking to influence voters through both covert and overt means. The statement identified the campaign as an attack on a “democratic institution” rather than the election itself. Because of the sensitive nature of the information which was sued to identify the campaign, few details are even able to be made public so it is unknown if the campaign is limited to influence operations or if systems belonging to political parties and officers have been compromised or if voting systems have been targeted by cyber-attacks. While many nations have been refining and broadening their online influence campaigns, Russia remains the front runner in campaigns targeting elections in western nations.
Analyst Notes
This makes it probable that Russia is behind this campaign. Although with Chinese/Canadian relations souring following the detainment of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou, it is possible that China could be looking to influence Canada’s political future.
