September 24, 2019 | Local, C4ISR, Security
Three years ago the North American Aerospace Defence Command (Norad) charged the Canadian army with providing an inventory of all military bases and surrounding infrastructure.
The Americans were looking to spot vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure that could be used in a potential cyber attack.
The several-year-old request was detailed in a letter sent by former Norad Commander and U.S. Admiral William Gourtney to the Canadian Chief of Defence Staff, Jonathan Vance.
In the letter Gourtney requested that Canada “identify and mitigate” potential areas of vulnerability on Canadian bases, specifically those “installations that are critical for accomplishing Norad missions.”
The letter was delivered on March 24, 2016. Furthermore, it asked Vance to “advocate developing capabilities to respond to cyber incidents on CAF [infrastructure control systems] and defend CAF if required.”
The request also expanded to identifying civilian infrastructure through cooperation with Public Safety Canada and “developing processes for reporting cyber incidents on the identified civilian infrastructure.”
According to cyber expert, David Masson, vulnerability arises in “operational technology systems” that run tasks in critical infrastructure. Masson claims that these systems are extremely difficult to secure.
“There's lots of them. Look at it as 50, 60, 70 different bespoke communications systems. There's no real standardization because they're so old. Many of them were never expected to be connected to the internet,” said Masson.
Despite this, Masson claims that the systems can be reinforced and secured.
April 20, 2023 | Local, Aerospace
Le Poseidon P-8A de Boeing qu’envisage d’acheter le Canada a connu des ratés ces dernières années en demeurant trop longtemps à l’atelier, révèle un rapport du gouvernement américain. Ses conclusions incitent l’opposition aux Communes à exiger un appel d’offres en bonne et due forme, comme le demande déjà Bombardier afin de présenter une soumission.
July 11, 2023 | Local, Aerospace
July 11, 2023 – Ottawa, ON – National Defence / Canadian Armed Forces The Ministers of Defence of Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Sweden and the United Kingdom share the conviction that continued support to Ukraine is of utmost importance in the light of Russia’s brutal and unprovoked aggression. The parties agree that in order to assist Ukraine in the defence of its airspace, they will establish a joint coalition on training of the Ukrainian Air Force in operating and maintaining F-16 fighter aircraft, in accordance with the necessary authorizations and with the possibility to include other types of fighter aircraft at a later stage. The parties agree to commence training of relevant Ukrainian pilots, technicians and support staff, which will provide the Ukrainian Air Force with basic capabilities of operating, servicing and maintaining F-16 fighter aircraft. This includes making relevant equipment, trainers and other staff available for such training. All training activities will be conducted outside of Ukraine. The coalition’s focus will be on training, but will also in due course be ready to consider other lines of effort related to ensuring Ukraine a fully functional F-16 capability. https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/news/2023/07/statement-on-a-joint-coalition-on-f-16-training-of-the-ukrainian-air-force.html
April 17, 2023 | Local, Other Defence
More than 60 of this country's former top security officials, military commanders and politicians - along with a former top Supreme Court justice - have signed an open letter imploring the Liberal government to take national security and defence more seriously.