The Canadian Government's Department of Foreign Affairs and Consular Relations, Global Affairs Canada, has fallen victim to a cyberattack.
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While critical services remain accessible, access to some online services is currently unavailable as government systems continue to recover from the attack.
The Global Affairs Canada (GAC) systems experienced an outage following a cyberattack last week.
GAC is the Canadian government department responsible for managing the country's diplomatic and consular relations, international trade, and leading international development and humanitarian assistance programs.
In a statement, the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS), Shared Services Canada and the Communications Security Establishment jointly confirmed that a cybersecurity incident involving Global Affairs Canada occurred sometime last week .
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The attack was detected on January 19 and mitigation measures were subsequently taken.
While critical services remain available through Global Affairs' online systems, “access to the internet and to internet-based services” is not available as mitigation measures have been implemented and the systems are undergoing recovery.
There is no indication that other government departments were affected by the attack, the government explains.
Official sources have not yet disclosed what caused the attack or who the malicious users behind it are, as the investigation continues.
The cyberattack on the Canadian government comes at a time when Russia-Ukraine tensions continue to escalate.
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Equally interesting is the fact that the attack occurred around the same time that the Canadian Centre for Cybersecurity issued a warning to “critical infrastructure operators” to be aware of and take mitigation measures against known Russian-backed cyber threats
Earlier this month, many websites of the Ukrainian government were compromised, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the country.
The perpetrators were considered Russian hackers, although website defacement is not the typical attack method used by hacking groups funded by Russia, such as the GRU.
