(Reuters) — Russia-linked hackers may seek to disrupt Canada’s powerful oil and natural gas sector, especially as Ottawa is a strong backer of Ukraine, a Canadian spy agency said on Wednesday.
The Communications Security Establishment reports that intelligence agencies say Russia has repeatedly deployed destructive cyberattacks against its adversaries as geopolitical crises escalate.
“We assess that there is an even chance of a disruptive incident in the oil and gas sector in Canada caused by Russia-linked actors, due to their higher tolerance for risk, the increase in their numbers and activity, as well as the number of vulnerable targets in the sector overall,”
; it says in a threat assessment.Canada is the world’s fourth largest oil producer. The CSE said the oil and gas sector employs about 600,000 people and accounted for 5% of gross domestic product.
The CSE said the most likely target of cyberattacks by pro-Russian hackers was operational technology networks that monitor and control large industrial assets.
“It is difficult to overstate the importance of the oil and gas sector to national security because much of our critical
The infrastructure is dependent on oil and gas products, it says.
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