Canada Accuses India Of Using Spyware To Track Separatists

Uploaded on 2024-11-01 in INTELLIGENCE--International, GOVERNMENT-National, FREE TO VIEW

A Canadian spy agency has said India is using cyber technology to track separatists abroad. In a report, Canada’s Communications Security Establishment (CSE) said India was using cyber capabilities “to track and surveil activists and dissidents living abroad” as well as stepping up cyber attacks against Canadian government networks.

The CSE said that the Indian government is using illicit spyware to track separatists abroad, in response to Canada's accusation that a top Indian official of authorising violence that included the killing of a Sikh in Vancouver.

Canada has the largest Sikh community outside of India, and includes activists for an independent Sikh state. “It is clear that we are seeing India being an emerging [cyber] threat actor,” the CSE chief, Caroline Xavier, told a news conference. In the report, her agency blamed the rift in bilateral relations between Canada and India for “very likely” driving this activity.

The report notes that, “a pro-India hacktivist group” launched crippling DDoS attacks, flooding a system with online traffic to make it inaccessible to legitimate users, against Canadian websites including the military’s public-facing website.

Canadian officials say they have traced a campaign targeting Canadian Khalistan activists to the highest levels of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government. Testifying at a house of commons public safety and national security committee, the deputy minister of foreign affairs, David Morrison, confirmed a Washington Post story that implicated the Indian home affairs minister, Amit Shah, in the plot to intimidate and assassinate Canadian Sikhs.

The Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, and the national police have said there are “clear indications” of India’s involvement in the murder, as well as a broad campaign of intimidation, violence and other threats against Khalistan activists.

Government relations have deteriorated and Delhi and Ottawa recently each expelled the other’s ambassador and other senior diplomats.

Image: Ideogram

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