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  13 juin 2019 | Local, Sécurité, Autre défense

  Canada should think again about having the ability to use offensive cyber weapons: Expert

  Howard Solomon Canada's electronic spy agency will soon get new authority to launch cyber attacks if the government approves legislation that is in the final stages of being debated. There's a good chance it will be proclaimed before the October federal election. But a discussion paper issued Wednesday by the Canadian Global Affairs Institute says Canadians need to debate the pros and cons of using this new power. “This direction not only opens up new possibilities for Canadian defence, it could also represent significant new risks,” says the report. “Without good answers to the difficult questions this new direction could raise, the country could be headed down a very precarious path.” Among the possible problems: Cyber retaliation. Another: While Canada might try to target a cyber attack, the impact might be bigger than expected — in fact, it might boomerang and smack us back. Third is the lack of international agreement on the use of cyber weapons (although this is a double-edged sword: Without an agreement there are no formal limits on what any country is forbidden from doing in cyberspace). “To move forward at this point to implement or even formally endorse a strategy of cyber attack would be risky and premature,” concludes the report's author, computer science professor Ken Barker, who also heads the University of Calgary's Institute for Security, Privacy and Information Assurance. “There are challenging technical controls that must be put in place as well as a critical international discussion on how cyber weaponry fits within the rules of war.” Barker's paper is in response to the 2017 strategy setting out Defence Department goals, where the possibility of Canada having a cyber attack capability first raised. It wasn't written with Bill C-59 in mind — now in its final stage before Parliament — which actually gives Canada's electronic spy agency, the Communications Security Establishment (CSE), the power to use what's called “active” as well as defensive cyber operations. In an interview Tuesday, Barker said “in the desire to push this thing they need to have more carefully thought about the questions I raise in this paper.” “Maybe it's late, but at least it's available.” He dismisses the argument that by announcing it has an offensive cyber capability Canada will cause other countries to think twice about attacking us with cyber weapons. “They would attempt to find out what Canada is doing to create cyber attack capabilities,” he argued. “One of the risks once we do endorse this,” he added, “is we open ourselves up to other countries to using Canada as a launching pad for cyber attacks to cover up their involvement, and [then] say ‘That was done by Canada.'” Nation states are already active in cyberspace. Ottawa has blamed China for the 2014 hack of the National Research Council, Washington suspects China was behind the massive hack of employee files at the Office of Personnel Management, and there is strong evidence that Russia mounted a sophisticated social media attack against the U.S. during the 2016 federal election. According to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, The U.S. the U.K. and Australia say they have used offensive cyber operations against the Islamic State. The U.S.-based Council on Foreign Relations notes that Germany increased its offensive cyber capability after a 2016 attack on the country's legislature blamed on Russia. Last year the New York Times reported the U.S. Cyber Command has been empowered to be more offensive. Meanwhile in April the CSE warned it's “very likely” there will be some form of foreign cyber interference during the run-up to October's federal election here, The most commonly-cited interference in a country were two cyber attacks that knocked out electrical power in Ukraine — in December 2015 and again in December 2016 — largely believed to have been launched from Russia. All this is why some experts say Canada has to have an offensive cyber capability to at least keep up. In January, Ray Boisvert, former assistant director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), told a parliamentary committee that “the best defence always begins with a good offense ... “When more than five dozen countries are rumoured to be developing active cyber capabilities, in my view that means we must develop capabilities to respond and in some cases that includes outside our borders.” Background In 2017 the Trudeau government announced a new defence strategy that included the promise of “conducting active cyber operations against potential adversaries in the context of government-authorized military missions.” The same year the government introduced Bill C-59, which in part would give the CSE, which is responsible for securing government networks, the ability to take action online to defend Canadian networks and proactively stop cyber threats before they reach systems here. This would be done as part of new legislation governing the CSE called the Communications Security Act. That act would give CSE the ability to conduct defensive and “active” cyber operations. Active operations are defined as anything that could “degrade, disrupt, influence, respond to or interfere with the capabilities, intentions or activities of a foreign individual, state, organization or terrorist group as they relate to international affairs, defence or security.” Both defensive and active cyber operations can't be used against any portion of the global information infrastructure within this country. And they have to be approved by the Minister of Defence. C-59 has been passed by the House of Commons and slightly amended by the Senate. It was scheduled back in the House last night to debate the Senate amendments. Despite all the cyber incidents blamed on nation states, Barker is reluctant to say we're in an era of low-level cyber war right now. Many incidents can be characterized as cyber espionage and not trying cause harm to another state, he argues. https://www.itworldcanada.com/article/canada-should-think-again-about-having-the-ability-to-use-offensive-cyber-weapons-expert/418912

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  12 novembre 2018 | Local, Naval

  Steel costs for sixth patrol vessel could be steeper

  Andrea Gunn (agunn@herald.ca) Ongoing steel and aluminum tariffs between the United States and Canada will not drive up costs for the first five Arctic and Offshore Patrol Ships, but could contribute to the final price tag for the sixth, the Department of National Defence says. There have been tariffs in place on imports of Canadian steel and aluminum to the U.S. of 25 per cent and 10 per cent respectively since the end of May. In response, Canada implemented its own dollar-for-dollar duties on steel and aluminum being imported from the U.S. Both the American tariffs and Canadian countermeasures remain in place, even with a new tentative agreement to replace NAFTA. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau confirmed the signing of the new trilateral trade deal was not contingent on the lifting of those tariffs. In an emailed statement, Department of National Defence spokesperson Ashley Lemire said these tariffs will not have an impact on the cost of the first five Arctic and Offshore Patrol Ships (AOPS) being built by Irving Shipbuilding as part of the National Shipbuilding Strategy. Lemire said most, if not all, of the steel has already been purchased for these vessels and none of it comes from the U.S. “As part of its contract with the Government of Canada, Irving Shipbuilding Inc. is responsible for the procurement of steel used for the construction of the Arctic and Offshore Patrol Ships,” Lemire said in an email. “Irving procured the majority of steel from a foreign supplier who sourced it from Europe and, to a lesser extent, from China. A small amount of steel was procured in Canada.” Lemire said for the sixth AOPS, which the government confirmed plans to build last week, the department has planned and budgeted for the risk of increased steel and aluminum prices. Earlier this week a DND spokesperson said buying a sixth AOPS will increase the cost of the $2.3 billion project by about $810 million. Of that, $250 million is set aside for “adjustments” — things like labour rates, inflation, and exchange rates. Lemire said any additional steel costs will come from that $250 million fund. David Perry, senior analyst with the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, said the materials needed to build a navy vessel are so specialized that it's not uncommon for governments to do advanced purchases “There's a limited supply; you can't just go and call it up at the last minute kind of thing,” he said. Perry said in the case of the AOPS, having a separate fund set aside for potential cost increases — rather than paying the company a higher contract price to assume all the liability for changes in commodity or labour prices — will likely save taxpayers money if costs do go up. Ian Lee, associate professor at Carleton University's Sprott School of Business told The Chronicle Herald the federal government is lucky to have avoided any major increases with the AOPS. But, Lee said, if the tariffs remain in place, they are likely to impact future builds either directly or indirectly. “It's not going to affect the (AOPS) program but it's still a burden on the economy it's going to be passed on through the cost of doing business,” he said. This is perhaps concerning given the most expensive build of the National Shipbuilding Strategy — the Canadian Surface Combatant — is on the horizon. But how much that project would be impacted if tariffs remain in place is anybody's guess, Lee said. “Historically governments have been very, very involved in the shipbuilding industry with subsidies, and offsets and that sort of thing, so it's hard to predict how it might affect future builds,” he said. “It's not a normal competitive market like the stock market or most commodities.” That said, Lee said there will likely be a big push on the federal government's part to get the tariffs sorted ahead of the upcoming election. “Generally speaking when you look at the trade agreements that have been signed in the last 10 or 20 years whether it was the original NAFTA, CETA or the TPP, one of the first things and most important things you do is reduce or eliminate tariffs,” he said, “I think it's going to make it more difficult for Mr. Trudeau and his government to defend this in the fall 2019 election, that's why I think they're going to be working assiduously to try and remove them.” https://www.thechronicleherald.ca/news/local/steel-costs-for-sixth-patrol-vessel-could-be-steeper-257534/

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  27 juillet 2022 | Local, Aérospatial

  Canada’s new Space Division: Evolution not revolution

  Even as Canada acknowledges growing importance of space in defense, Jessica West of Canada's Project Ploughshares said, "The creation of a division within the military [structure] rather than a standalone force points to the integration of space across military functions rather than a ‘warfighting’ orientation."