Canadas electronic surveillance agency has secretly developed an arsenal of cyberweapons capable of stealing data and destroying adversaries infrastructure, according to newly revealed classified documents.
Communications Security Establishment, or CSE, has also covertly hacked into computers across the world to gather intelligence, breaking into networks in Europe, Mexico, the Middle East and North Africa, the documents show.
The revelations, reported Monday by CBC News in collaboration with The Intercept, shine a light for the first time on how Canada has adopted aggressive tactics to attack, sabotage and infiltrate targeted computer systems.
The latest disclosures come as the Canadian government debates whether to hand over more powers to its spies to disrupt threats as part of the controversial anti-terrorism law, Bill C-51.
Christopher Parsons, a surveillance expert at the University of Torontos Citizen Lab, told CBC News that the new revelations showed that Canadas computer networks had already been turned into a battlefield without any Canadian being asked: Should it be done? How should it be done?
According to documents obtained by The Intercept from National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden, CSE has a wide range of powerful tools to perform computer network exploitation and computer network attack operations. These involve hacking into networks to either gather intelligence or to damage adversaries infrastructure, potentially including electricity, transportation or banking systems. The most well-known example of a state-sponsored attack operation involved the use of Stuxnet, a computer worm that was reportedly developed by the United States and Israel to sabotage Iranian nuclear facilities.
One document from CSE, dated from 2011, outlines the range of methods the Canadian agency has at its disposal as part of a cyber activity spectrum to both defend against hacking attacks and to perpetrate them. CSE says in the document that it can disable adversary infrastructure, control adversary infrastructure, or destroy adversary infrastructure using the attack techniques. It can also insert malware implants on computers to steal data.
...
https://www.hackread.com/new-snowden-documents-expose-canadas-hidden-cyber-warfare-strength/