Russian cybercriminals managed to hack into a Quebec municipality's water treatment plant systems.

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Russian cybercriminals managed to hack into a Quebec municipality’s water treatment plant systems and had the ability to wreak havoc on the crucial infrastructure before getting caught, according to Canada’s cyber spy agency.

In its latest annual report released Monday, the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) said that it detected over 3,200 cyber incidents affecting either federal government organizations or one of ten critical infrastructure sectors, such as energy, critical minerals and water.

In one particular case discussed in the report, the signals intelligence agency said it was advised last October that Russian hacktivist group NoName had broken into the Quebec water plant’s network and gained access to many crucial systems.

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According to CSE, NoName claimed it had gained the “ability to covertly control pumps, chlorine dosing, pressure settings and monitoring/alerts systems.” The report does not identify the impacted Quebec municipality.

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The annual report … points to two main state cyber adversaries: Russia and China. The report emphasizes that both countries pose a growing threat in the Canadian Arctic, where challenges posed by adversaries go “beyond traditional military and cyber threats to include economic and influence-related activities that seek to shape access, infrastructure, and decision-making in the region.”

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  • ScottyOP
    56·
    5 天前

    Yes, and the same is true for all public infrastructure and other sensitive technology.

    But tankies keep up the illusion that remote control of Chinese tech isn’t a problem.

    As an addition: In August 2025, a joint advisory of Western goverments’ intel - including Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (Cyber Centre) and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) - said,

    People’s Republic of China (PRC) state-sponsored cyber threat actors are targeting networks globally, including, but not limited to, telecommunications, government, transportation, lodging, and military infrastructure networks. While these actors focus on large backbone routers of major telecommunications providers, as well as provider edge (PE) and customer edge (CE) routers, they also leverage compromised devices and trusted connections to pivot into other networks. These actors often modify routers to maintain persistent, long-term access to networks. [Source (pdf)]

    • orioler25@lemmy.ca
      71·
      4 天前

      Could you explain how this relates to the article about Russian-contracted actors? The source you linked doesn’t make that association beyond that both Russia and the PRC are cybersecurity concerns, and neither this article or the CSE report it references mentions any hardware used in this system and that report only stated they are concerned about PRC cyber-attacks, but not that this specific attack was in any way related to the PRC or that devices used in these systems are potentially compromised by the PRC is used in this system (the CSE report even emphasizes personal mobile devices, not the infrastructure of public services). The source you link also just talks about routers like, in general, which is a given in network security, and I’m sure that there is indeed a risk given the production of these devices (such as whether there is proof that this was on a network that used Westermo devices), but there’s no specifics that indicate something along the lines of PRC having direct remote control of devices used in this infrastructure. Given you’re also posting a known propaganda network (Postmedia Network agencies are basically tabloids), I’m curious if there’s some real sources associated with any of this.

      (this is also the first time in my life that I’ve seen someone say that “tankies” are keeping up an illusion about Chinese tech as more secure, I’m curious where that’s come from as well)

      Edit: okay, so it looks like they’ve been pretty active since I made this comment. I think it’s safe to say they’re bullshitting and did not actually take the time to research what they are talking about.