Canada quietly extended its cyber defence umbrella to Ukraine, Latvia after Russian invasion: report | CBC News

The Canadian government has quietly designated Ukraine and Latvia’s networks as “systems of importance,” according to a recent report, extending the defence prowess of its cyber intelligence agency to the two eastern European countries.

According to the Communications Security Establishment’s annual report, Defence Minister Anita Anand signed two ministerial orders last year to bring Ukraine and Latvia’s electronic information and network systems under Canada’s defence umbrella.

The orders were signed March 17, 2022, less than a month after Russia’s widely condemned invasion of Ukraine.

This is the first time a minister has used their powers under the CSE Act to designate entities outside Canada as systems of importance, according to the foreign signals intelligence agency.

“The designations allow CSE to provide cyber security assistance to help protect the designated entities,” reads the report, made public Thursday.

“The orders are still in effect and CSE’s assistance is ongoing.”

The report doesn’t detail what defence activities the cyber intelligence has provided so far. It only said that CSE’s cyber centre has notified Ukraine about hostile cyber activities against its national infrastructure and about vulnerabilities in it. 

The report also revealed that CSE deployed some of its personnel to Latvia to help defend against cyber threats, including identifying adversarial threat activity on the country’s critical networks. There were four trips last fiscal year and CSE said deployments are ongoing this year. 

In 2021, the federal government released a statement on international law in cyberspace, which clearly states that Canada considers the rules-based international order to extend into cyberspace.

“Canada believes that international law provides essential parameters for States’ behaviour in cyberspace and will continue to help ensure global stability and security,” it reads.