Canadian Cyber News Rewire - 11/07/26
Wiring you into the cyber news relevant to Canada the week ending July 11
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Canadian Cyber in Context Updates
The Canadian Cyber News Rewire is a survey of Canadian cyber and adjacent news stories from this past week (or recently). Questions or business inquiries: info[@]cyberincontext.ca
In May, I was part of a panel on the role of digital sovereignty and the security of critical infrastructure in Canada and NATO. You can watch the full panel here (CPAC).
Canadian News
Canada Already Has the Tools to Stop Surveillance Pricing (The Walrus)
Great article by Emily Osborne of the Canadian Shield Institute. This statement can be applied to so many digital/cyber issues in Canada: “The real problem isn’t a gap in the law. It’s a lack of political will to enforce existing legal principles.”
This begs the question: Can there be political will if the political doesn’t understand the problem or the solutions?
MRU student, staff data stolen in ransomware cyberattack (Calgary Herald)
“The data of students and staff was compromised in a June cyberattack, Mount Royal University officials said Tuesday.”
B.C. prepping lawsuit against OpenAI over Tumbler Ridge tragedy, attorney general says (CTV News)
British Columbia has retained lawyers in BC and California to file a lawsuit against OpenAI over the use of ChatGPT in the Tumbler Ridge tragedy.
Gimli says no evidence of misuse of residents’ data from cyberattack (MBNews101)
The small, Northern Manitoba town of Gimli suffered a cyberattack back in April. “A ransomware group known as Payload claimed responsibility for the attack and said it had encrypted the RM’s data. It gave the RM 240 hours (10 days) to negotiate payment.” It is unclear if the town paid the ransom, but based on context it sounds like they didn’t.
Canadian Cybersecurity Network launches 100 Women. 100 Signals (Canadian Cybersecurity Network)
The Canadian Cybersecurity Network (CCN) has a new initiative to “[bring] together the perspectives of women from across Canada to identify the trends, risks, and opportunities that matter most.” CCN are taking submissions, with the full edition to be released in early September.
Canada is heavily investing in satellites for the Arctic, but also space capabilities broadly. Telesat and MDA give Canada a massive advantage and could eventually compete against Spacelink.
Scotiabank, Sun Life, Telus, and Lightworks are partnering to jointly build AI infrastructure.
$10.2 million to support the AI adoption of six Manitoba-based organizations. This includes $1.14 million to the Manitoba Construction Sector Council; $500K for Aryval Ltd (event and enrolment management for schools); $471K for Construction Clock Inc (GPS-based construction time tracking); $2.3 million for ExpensePoint (expense management platform); $800K for mode40 ltd (AI-powered factory control software); $5 million for Taiv Inc (AI-driven ad-replacement technology).
Meta to spend $13-billion to build AI data centre in Alberta (The Globe and Mail)
Alberta is making a big play for data centres at the moment. “To meet the electricity needs of the data centre, Pembina Pipeline Corp., Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners and Kineticor Asset Management are constructing a $4.6-billion natural gas plant in Sturgeon County.” My assumption would be that the praries might be a good place to build praries due to its vast flatness, but there are so many variables to consider..
Meta’s new $10B AI data center will run almost entirely on fossil fuels (Cybernews)
Includes agreements for bilateral investment in AI and defence/security. Also mentions progress made on two commercial partnerships, one with Cohere for and Saudi Arabia’s HUMAIN for collaboration on AI infrastructure, and another between BlackBerry and Aramco Digital to explore sovereign secure communications.
Interesting article on a very cool NATO medical exercise where they simulated a cyber attack.
In September 2025, CAF vision care coverage allowed the purchase of AI glasses, but that policy has now changed. They also take to time to remind everyone that: “AI glasses and any similar smart eyewear are strictly forbidden in all Operations Zones, Security Zones, and High Security Zones. There are no exceptions for these devices, even if the user claims the device is “off” or in “airplane mode.””
MDA Space will buy 567-million-euro majority stake in French satellite company (Betakit)
A big move by MDA. “MDA said the deal will create “one of the largest space-based geointelligence businesses in the world.” As I have said before, MDA (with Telesat) and the broader supply chain in Canada make Canada a global leader in satellite and space-based capabilities.
CSE Tiptoes Out of the Cyber Closet (Seriously Risky Business)
The recent Seriously Risky Business newsletter includes some good analysis of the latest CSE report that reveals multiple cyber operations.
Canada’s Beacon details plans for data center campus in Alabama (Data Center Dynamics)
Canadian data centre company Beacon is planning to build a two-building data centre campus in Alabama.
Some great news for the continuation of CanCode! A $30 million investment “to offer learning opportunities to 1.1 million students and train 76,000 teachers to incorporate new digital skills and technologies into their classrooms.”
I’ve long been a fan of CIRA, which is a great organization and does a good job managing Canada’s .CA domain.
Xanadu visits the White House for quantum summit (Betakit)
Canadian quantum-computing firm Xanadu was the only Canadain company at the US government event.
“Canada’s biggest airport is warning passengers about a spike in AI-generated articles, written by bots, spreading misinformation about flight delays and cancellations.”
Federal agency touts operation of cybersecurity sensors across the North (CBC News)
Article about CSE deploying network/host-based sensors in Northwest Territories, Yukon, and Nunavut to better protect Canada’s North and Arctic. These sensors are already deployed across most of the federal government.
A $1.65 million investment as part of the “The Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership (Sustainable CAP) is a $3.5-billion, five-year agreement (2023 to 2028), between the federal, provincial and territorial governments to strengthen the competitiveness, innovation, and resiliency of the agriculture, agri‐food, and agri‐based products sector.”
US and allies warn of Russian critical infrastructure attacks (Bleeping Computer)
Our semi-regular reminder that Russian state and aligned actors are constantly looking to attack Canadian infrastructure.
The two signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to collaborate on quantum technologies, post‑quantum cybersecurity, and sustainable data centre infrastructure.
Events
BSides Ottawa folk are fantastic people; highly recommend any event put on by them.
Parliamentary News & Upcoming Meetings
This section includes any House of Commons and Senate meetings that are relevant to Canadian cyber.
Parliament has begun its Summer break and will resume sitting on September 21.
Canada-Relevant News
As many issues don’t respect borders, this section is for stories that impact Canada, but may not be Canadian-sourced or focused, to differentiate from the previous section, which is 100% focused on Canada.
This is big news. CMMC is the US’ big defence cybersecurity certification that most contractors are required to adopt to contract with the US. Canada is developing their own contract based on the exact same standard called CPCSC. CPCSC is already based on NIST SP 800-171 Revision 3. So, in other words, backwards United States is updating their out of date security standard to match Canada’s modern, up to date standard. I will be writing an article on this soon.
ICE’s Internal Watchdog Is Now Investigating Online Critics (Wired)
This is being shared here rather than in the US section because they are also targeting Canadians. This won’t be isolated to Americans.
Reddit Is Cracking Down on AI Marketing Slop With Its Own AI (Bloomberg)
The Reddit algorithm is very easy to play, but Reddit is catching on.
How convenient that everyone says AI is inevitable, even as costs increase and use declines. This will continue and get worse as companies like Microsoft realize nobody likes their models. Copilot really stinks.
How NATO is facing mounting cybersecurity challenges (Atlantic Council)
NATO has been a crucial tool to get alliance members to increase investment in cybersecurity and cyber defence. This is what happened in particular with Canada in the latter half of the 2010s and helped push Canada to increasingly see and use cyber as an instrument to support allies.
Beijing is looking at curbing overseas access to China’s top AI models, sources say (Reuters)
Not a big surprise. As Western models become more expensive, many people are moving to use Chinese models. China is just as worried as other countries about intellectual property theft of AI models.
Reframing smart glasses as ‘pervert glasses’ (This Week in Security)
“Smart glasses equipped with cameras, microphones, and AI are a creeping [and creepy] privacy and security nightmare, prompting backlash.”
A Hacker’s Arrest Reveals Microsoft Can Track Users Via a Windows Device ID (PC Mag)
This has some potential digital sovereignty implications. The arrest and extradition of 19-year-old Scattered Spider hacker to the United States occurred due to critical help from Microsoft: “Microsoft can track a Windows PC and its online activity through a “Global Device ID” that seems to have no easy opt-out, sparking fears about potential surveillance.”
Full writeup of the Windows GDID (Github) (h/t Risky Bulletin)
Someone reverse-engineered Windows Device ID and wrote an analysis.
Accenture confirms breach after hacker offers stolen data for sale (Bleeping Computer)
The big consulting firms are major targets for criminals and ransomware operators. The threat actor claims “the data includes source code, RSA keys, SSH keys, Azure PAT (personal access tokens), Azure Storage access keys, and configuration files.” There is a chance this affects Canada/Canadians.
New York Times says OpenAI hid evidence in ChatGPT copyright trial (Techcrunch)
“The New York Times and The Daily News claim that OpenAI has been lying about its ability to search customer chat log data and training datasets for their copyrighted works.” These revelations could impact how ChatGPT and other LLM copyright lawsuits are even in Canada.
Adults Broke The Internet, And They’re Trying To Fix It By Kicking Kids Off (Techdirt)
Great piece by Mike Masnick, which captures much of how I have been feeling about the current push to ban teens and children off social media and the Internet.
Meta says US states are seeking $1.4 trillion in penalties in August youth safety trial (Reuters)
Meta “said in a court filing on Monday that four states were seeking $1.4 trillion in penalties over accusations the company designed its Facebook and Instagram platforms to addict young users and misled the public about their safety.” The bankruptcy and end of Meta would be a great benefit to humanity. Meta has shown its preferred course is to profit off of fraud, addiction, and human suffering.
Lawsuit: Man used Grok to make 7K sex images of stepdaughter, then shot himself (Ars Technica)
“Yet the harm was not stopped then, either. Despite mandatory reporting requirements to share information like a user’s IP address when CSAM is flagged, xAI repeatedly refused to help cops or NCMEC identify the user, the complaint alleged. For weeks, xAI allegedly “obstructed this investigation at every turn” and made it harder for “law enforcement efforts to locate, identify, and apprehend the perpetrator.”
Russia hacks doorbell cameras to spy on Nato bases (Yahoo News)
It does not state where specifically, but this could potentially be a risk to CAF in Latvia.
The AI offence-defence debate is asking the wrong question (Binding Hook)
Great article, which gets at the heart of what my PhD research is showing: attacker intent matters and can alter a lot about capability needs including what AI model is used.
New report from Binding Hook
Canadian Cyber Threat Intelligence
Any relevant cyber threat intelligence to Canada will be posted here. I only list the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security’s (CCCS) alerts here, not all advisories; follow the full feed here.
Alert - AL25-007 - Vulnerability impacting Roundcube Webmail – CVE-2025-49113 – Update 1
Suspected China-Aligned Hackers Exploit Roundcube Flaws Against Universities (The Hacker News)
This is hitting Canadian universities.
JadePuffer: The First Complete LLM-Driven Ransomware Attack (Bleeping Computer)
Cybersecurity Startup Publishes Infostealers to NPM (Opensource Malware) (H/t Catalin Cimpanu)
Cybersecurity startup that hasn’t officially launched yet is operating like a threat actor. Author of this report has an interesting theory: they’re building a dataset of NPM supply-chain attacks. Regardless of what they’re doing, this is majorly unethical and potentially illegal depending on your jurisdiction.
Proofpoint: Password-spraying campaign against North American Education Sector (Bluesky) [H/t Catalin Cimpanu)
Proofpoint is only saying the US education sector, but I have personally seen that this is also affecting Canadian universities.
Progress urges ShareFile admins to shut down servers over “credible” threat (Bleeping Computer)
Hearing a few things that this might be more severe than initially being suggested.
SharpViewStateKing: The stealthy implant framework (Canadian Cyber Security Centre)
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United States News
US Army websites defaced with pro-Kurdish sentiments, insults to Trump (Cyberscoop)
“As of Monday morning, error pages on two U.S. Army websites – oil.army.mil and ai2c.army.mil – displayed defacement messages visible to users. The messages denigrated President Donald Trump and United States Ambassador to Türkiye Tom Barrack, called to “FREE KURDISTAN,” And included another line reading “Kurdish sr was here.”
These Maine librarians are helping patrons resist AI and Big Tech (Bangor Daily News)
Libraries have been massively important for tech and digital information preservation and that role is only growing. A great article showing how libraries will continue to be important, and likely more important than ever, as the information environment continues to degrade due to AI.
Supreme Court allows Texas app law requiring age verification to take effect (The Record)
“A Texas law restricting children’s ability to buy or download apps can be enforced while a lower court considers the case.” This is not the end of the matter and could wind up before the Supreme Court again, but whatever the outcome, this will likely affect how other countries apply such bans. Many countries and states are trying to institute bans right now, all a little bit different, as this is unproven territory. Australia is the only comparable ban yet, and all research so far has shown it’s a failure.
US cyber agency is using Anthropic’s Mythos to audit government code, sources say (Reuters)
“The scanning is being done by CISA’s Attack Surface Evaluation team, according to one of the sources. The team is a group within CISA that conducts digital security assessments and hacking exercises across government.”
NSA revives ‘Tailored Access Operations’ name for elite hacking unit (The Record)
Tailored Access Operations, or TAO, was the name of the NSA’s first official hacking team/group to conduct offensive cyber operations in the 1990s. This undoes a lot of changes in the late 2010s and sounds like the intent is to “move developers and operators closer.”
What Happens if China Hacks the US Water Supply? I Went to a Secret War Game to Find Out (Wired)
These types of simulations happen more often than you may realize. There is a long-held concept in Chinese strategy called “win from a position of inferiority,” which significantly influences Chinese strategy with cyber operations, which essentially dictates that in the event of a war between US and China, China will do all it can to win from a relative position of inferiority when military power is concerned.
United Kingdom and European Union News
Cyber Shield: The path to an agentic AI future for cyber defence (UK National Cyber Security Centre)
“The objective of Cyber Shield is to build a national-scale, collaborative approach to agentic cyber defence, using frontier AI to identify, reduce and resolve our national cyber risk.”
The UK have been uses the host-based and various other cyber defence sensors developed by CSE, so this is maybe looking to be a significantly beefed up and expanded version.
Britain plans to build autonomous AI ‘Cyber Shield’ to defend nation (The Record)
New EU Car Safety Rules Take Effect 7 July: How Your Car Could Monitor You (H/t Catalin Cimpanu)
I will say it over and over again: If you are worried about Chinese electric vehicles or cars in general, then you are simply biased and overlooking that Western companies are literally already doing everything you’re concerned about.
ECB tells Europe’s biggest banks to prepare for AI-powered cyber threats (Yahoo Finance)
European Central Bank tells European banks to prepare. Historically, the finance sector and banks were at the forefront of cybersecurity, but they’ve been struggling to maintain this lead of late amid rising fraud.
EU releases a multi-year, nine-step plan to bolster AI and cybersecurity in Europe.
State IDs for AI Agents: Will Estonia Set a Precedent? (Dark Reading)
A novel plan by Estonia will have state IDs for AI agents.
European cloud provider Nextcloud leaks 367K records, exposing staff and clients (Cybernews)
Breach of records includes contracts, employee details, emails, and more.
[Google Translated] Investigation into Odido hack points to possible involvement of the Dutch (Netherlands Police)
Phishing attack may have been the initial vector, which is believed to have been conducted by a Dutch citizen.
Swiss Army breaks with Microsoft: “Cyber Command” relies on Open Source (Heise Online)
“By October, all employees of these units are to be equipped with the open-source alternative OpenDesk at their workplaces. The ambitious roadmap shows how acute the need for action is perceived in the Alpine Republic.”
Other International News
Researchers discover Chinese company’s Full Digital Espionage Service (NetAskari)
Japanese teen arrested over cyberattack that disrupted anime streaming service (The Record)
Teen used ChatGPT to build tools to attack Bandai Channel.
“Taiwan’s Investigation Bureau has charged two executives of a company that allegedly helped China’s cyber spies target Taiwanese officials and scholars, impersonating reporters affiliated with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.” The Consortium partnered with Citizenlab to confirm this prior to the arrests.
One Target, Two Flags | Rival Espionage Actors Converge On Pakistani Law Enforcement (Sentinel Labs)
Indian and Chinese APTs infect same Pakistani police network. This is a good report to highlight the competition for access by state actors. It’s good to keep in mind there are massive amounts of cyber operations at the state level that we hear nothing about.
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Media of the Week
Cyber is magic