Canada dubs India as cyber adversary; clubs it with N. Korea, China

The Justin Trudeau government has designated India as a "cyber adversary" and added it to a list of Canada's hostile nations in cybersecurity. India condemned this move, calling it an attempt to tarnish its international reputation.

India is named fifth after China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea in the recently released survey ‘National CyberThreat  Assessment 2025-2026’

India is also mentioned in the trend on 'Geopolitically inspired non-state actors are creating unpredictability' citing as an example how a pro-India hacktivist group claimed to have defaced and conducted a brief attack against Canadian websites after India was accused of involvement in the killing of a Canadian citizen.

Outsourcing to private agencies

The report said, “India's leadership almost certainly aspires to build a modernised cyber programme with domestic cyber capabilities. India very likely uses its cyber programme to advance its national security imperatives, including espionage, counter-terrorism, and the country's efforts to promote its global status and counter-narratives against India and the Indian government. We assess that India's cyber programme likely leverages commercial cyber vendors to enhance its operations.”

"We assess that Indian state-sponsored cyber threat actors likely conduct cyber threat activity against Government of Canada networks for the purpose of espionage. We judge that official bilateral relations between Canada and India will very likely drive Indian state-sponsored cyber threat activity against Canada."

It also said, “countries that aspire to become new centres of power within the global system, such as India, are building cyber programs that present varying levels of threat to Canada.”

(By arrangement with livemint.com)