Canadian Cyber News Rewire - 30/05/26
Wiring you into the cyber news relevant to Canada the week ending May 30
The Canadian Cyber News Rewire is a survey of Canadian cyber or adjacent news stories from this past week (or recently). Please leave a comment if you think I missed anything.
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Editor Notes:
I have two new articles out with the Canadian Global Affairs Institute:
I have received a hefty round of feedback on my PhD thesis, so I may be a tad quiet outside the weekly Rewires.
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Canadian News
Ottawa wants CPP investments in ‘sovereign’ AI, but some wonder if it’s even safe (Paywalled)
Minister of AI and Digital Innovation should be renamed to Minister for Marketing.
Trump Wants to Tap Your Phone. Ottawa Might Let Him
From what I have heard, the negotiations for cross-border sharing under the US CLOUD Act have been put on pause, but there have been next to no active disclosures by the Canadian government about this so it’s good to be cautious and warn the government about what could happen if they continue them.
The Canadians Tied to a Russian Influence Scandal Are Back
Common theme lately: Far-right extremist influencers love to take Russian money.
Inside the black box reshaping Canada’s benefits system
Great article. This is happening across the government. Amid all the major layoffs across government, they’re specifically looking to AI to make up for those losses.
Litigants in at least 146 court matters were potentially involved in a data breach that is now the subject of a formal complaint with the privacy commissioner in Canada, Senate estimates has been told.
Canadian court transcription service VIQ Solutions is involved in a major privacy breach.
Lastwall raises $16 million to defend critical infrastructure in cyberspace
Lastwall is a great Canadian company. With this announcement, they are also hiring.
BDC backs quantum and cybersecurity firms to strengthen Canada’s defence capability
There is massive potential in Canada’s cyber and quantum industries.
The latest Canadian Army Today is out, which includes an article on CloudTAK, which is a great tactical cloud project that I was told about a year or two ago that I’ve been watching closely and great to see it doing so well.
Canada’s early-stage investment gap “now a sovereignty issue,” BDC says
I hate to agree, but companies continue to go to the US in search of investment so we must look for ways to keep them in Canada.
Ottawa’s latest deal with U.S. data giant Palantir raises warnings
Anything Palantir touches cannot be guaranteed to be secure and private. The funny thing about Palantir is that they’re really nothing special. They were just some of the first to make use of big and open-source data for defence and security purposes. They’re way overpriced for what any data analytics firm specializing in security and defence could do.
Also, for any journalists working on federal deals with Palantir: Continue digging, there is more that is not public yet.
Canada’s deal with U.S. data giant Palantir is ‘legitimate,’ defence minister says
Keep in mind that McGuinty is very much a talking head and doesn’t think for himself often. This is a farcical response and should be treated with contempt and ridicule. Palantir simply cannot be trusted with the data. In addition, they’re pretty mediocre for a company whose product isn’t special, and any defence/security specializing data analytics firm could do the same.
Got Questions About AI Data Centres in Vancouver? Here Are Answers
A nice breakdown of a lot of the basic 101 of data centres, specifically focused on Vancouver in light of the announcements of new data centres in BC.
AI Chatbots Are Coming to BC Classrooms
Microsoft will be providing
The Internet Has Become Too American to Trust
Gets at the heart of what happens when your closest ally and friend can no longer be trusted?
Charity leaves online safety coalition before announcing Google deal
“Boys and Girls Club gets $1.4 million deal with Google soon after leaving advocacy group”
Canadian crypto platform has rebranded after record fine, analysts say
Canadian military to send warships, aircraft and 800 personnel to U.S. RIMPAC exercise
A “fleet cyber protection group” will be attending, but I would not be surprised if there is a larger CAFCYBERCOM commitment as the Pacific is a big area for partnership building for CAFCYBERCOM right now.
Creating the Advanced Wireless Communications Innovation Network (AWIN), a “a groundbreaking platform aimed at advancing public safety, security, and defence systems through next-generation wireless technology.”
WonderFi clears final regulatory hurdle to be acquired by Robinhood
More news on Canadian corporations being bought by Americans.
‘Exercise the utmost caution’: Zara warns customers after possible data breach
Some big announcements this past week at CANSEC, Canada’s largest defence trade show. There isn’t much directly on cyber, but there is a lot that will impact cyber. Some highlights include Industrial and Technological Benefits Modernization, accelerating and supporting innovation initiatives, creating a Defence Advisory Forum, and more.
Government of Canada advances investments for Canadians through Supplementary Estimates (A), 2026–27
Including $2.8 million for the Vehicle Cyber Security Strategy
Canadian government spent tens of millions on secret Palantir contract
Approximately $44.4 million spent as of October 2025. The focus is on an “elite unit of the military” which we can assume is for JTF2/SOFCOM, but I continue to hear that Palantir is used elsewhere in the government as well.
Calian and Cohere Partner to Bring Sovereign AI to Defence Industry
Honestly surprised more defence companies aren’t rushing to partner with Cohere.
Ontario Unveils Framework for Defence Industrial Strategy
Cybersecurity is recognized/included under this strategy, which is increasingly common to include in broader defence industrial strategies. This makes sense and should happen. However, I fear that cybersecurity will be too closely tied to defence and treated the same, rather than as distinct needs.
Digital G7 reaches limited deal on child protection, AI energy impact
Some good and some bad out of this. A lot of privacy is coming to an end as they “agreed to recognize “a set of principles” to protect children online, notably through “age verification, protection of minors from the design stage of digital services””
Government of Canada accelerates homegrown AI innovation across Greater Toronto Area
Approximately $16.5 million for 13 businesses focuses on AI
Includes: Cosm Medical, DMD Building Systems, Edgecom Energy, Future Fertility, Naryant, Private AI (o/a Limina), MarkiTech, MinuteBox, ProteinQure, Stratosphere Technology (o/a Fiscal.ai), Trax.GD Corp (o/a Trax), Vector Institute and VisFuture.
CRTC’s new rules are one small step for Canadian content, one big blow for Canadian trade
Canadian Sentenced in D.C. to 33 Years in Sextortion Scheme that Targeted 145 Children in the U.S.
Canadian in the US sentenced in sextortion of children.
In AI era, Canada must protect its critical defence data: Senator Hay
Senator Katherine Hay with an opinion article in SenCA+ Magazine.
Bill C-22 Coverage
Apple, Google blast Canada’s plan to expand police data powers
The only people who are speaking favourably about Bill C-22 are the government and the police. That should be telling.
Committee studying lawful access bill urged to protect encryption, balance privacy with police needs
General coverage of concerns surrounding Bill C-22.
Liberals to amend police data interception bill following searing criticism
After spending countless hours and energy saying everyone else is wrong, liberals finally relent and agree to changes that literally everyone is complaining about, except the police.
It is unclear what the amendments will specifically be at this point, but it seems they want to ensure there is language protecting encryption. Some hints they may address the metadata concerns, but we’ll wait and see what they release.
Parliamentary News & Upcoming Meetings
This section includes any House of Commons and Senate meetings that are potentially relevant to Canadian cyber.
Senate Committee on National Security, Defence and Veterans Affairs
House of Commons Committee on Industry and Technology
June 1, 3:30 PM to 5:30 PM
House of Commons Committee on Science and Research
June 1, 3:30 PM to 6:00 PM
Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology
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.
In his first encyclical, Pope Leo XIV says AI must serve humanity, not the powerful few
OnlyFans mega leak reveals 340M user records, hackers claim
Onlyfans and others are claiming it is false.
Oura says it gets government demands for user data. Will it share how many?
Canadians are not specifically listed being targeted, but Canada is often wrapped up
‘Lazy’ narrative to connect AI to job cuts, says Nvidia boss Jensen Huang
Jensen Huang is a coward. Huang and every other AI evangelist proclaims that this will replace labour and do the job for others, but then refuse to take blame for these impacts. If you give a match to an arsonist, you can’t be shocked that you find fire when you turn your back.
Microsoft under fire for threatening security researcher with criminal investigation
Meta legal action forces Facebook whistleblower to sit in silence at Hay festival
Champion ethical hacker warns AI tools like Mythos will make competing harder
This is important because even as AI takes over a lot of the vulnerability discovery industry, they cannot make up for actual skilled hackers. However, this will deny hackers training and career advancement pathways.
Canadian Cyber Threat Intelligence
While not all attacks are reported or receive media attention, any notable or open-source cyber attacks on Canadian organizations and 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.
FBI warns extortion hackers are visiting US law firms to steal data
Trends in the US usually get mirrored in Canada
Protecting Cookies with Device Bound Session Credentials
Cool new security feature in Chrome.
Websites have a new way to spy on visitors: Analyzing their SSD activity
A crazy potential side channel attack that is done by measuring SSD timing.
The practice of cyber-threat intelligence in organizations: A socio-technical case study of a mature financial organization (H/T CTO @ NCSC)
Interesting article in Computers & Security journal
Microsoft Authenticator App Details now exposed in Entra SignInLogs
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Research, Op-Eds, and Events
National Cybersecurity Consortium 2026 Conference
June 17-19, 2026 Montreal, Quebec
Tech Vets Canada is partnering to provide free cybersecurity training and an opportunity for Canadian veterans to earn the BCIT Industrial Networking for Cybersecurity Professionals cert. Details in the screenshot below.
Digital sovereignty stack: Infrastructure, services, data, and AI knowledge
An older article from March, but is a great read and argues that the United States, China, and North Korea are the only countries with digital sovereignty.
Microsoft’s stance on zero day exploits is a dumpster fire of their own making
Microsoft is eroding what little trust it has with the information security community.
United States News
US Law Enforcement Warns of ‘Anti-Tech Extremism’ as AI Hatred Grows
Canada is experiencing this too, but Canadians thus far feel more heard than Americans, but that could change.
Trump hobbled top cyber agency just as AI learned to hack
CISA is a shell of its former self and barely functional.
Rudd orders Cyber Command reviews as Pentagon presses reform agenda
MITRE is conducting this study, which should provide some very interesting and good results. Going with a non-traditional defence company was 100% the play and great.
Exclusive: Pentagon says US military personnel are reportedly being targeted using location data
'“Wyden said in a statement that it was time to ‘start treating the adtech industry as a national security threat.’” The United States previously did this to target individuals, including in Iran. So now others have learned to do the same.
Ghost hackers: the cybersecurity mystery that nobody has solved
Article about the Shadow Brokers, whose identity still remains a mysterious, the group that stole and released NSA hacking tools.
Iranian hackers responsible for Los Angeles transit system breach, Israeli researchers say
Stole approximately 700GB of data. Perhaps there will be concerns for terrorism, but I would largely be concerned about this data being used for additional attacks.
Cruise giant Carnival confirms data breach affecting nearly 6 million people
Quite the big impact. I wouldn’t be surprised if this leads to more cruise-focused attacks.
NSA Launches Zero Trust Implementation Guidelines Resource Webpage
Zero Trust should be the default security architecture. Hopefully eventually we’ll just view it as the norm.
Charter confirms data breach after ShinyHunters extortion threat
Maybe if ShinyHunters breaches enough telecoms, they can remove Chinese APTs from the systems. (This is a joke)
US NewsUnited flight turns around over Atlantic after Bluetooth device named BOMB
This is a bad idea. Don’t do this.
US Law Enforcement Warns of ‘Anti-Tech Extremism’ as AI Hatred Grows
Concerning framing of this by the government. People are losing their livelihoods while major corporations are allowed to profit based on theft. Desperation comes naturally to those in survival mode.
Cyber Force? Senator pushes to create service branch under the Army
This has been a long time coming, but current plan is pretty dumb.
Mike Lindell’s ‘MyPillow’ is latest target of ransomware attack
IRS proposal could turn taxpayer facial verification into long-term fraud database
This type of data retention is what everyone is worried about in C-22.
United Kingdom and European Union News
This is a pretty bad one as passports are one of the most sought documents to fake, so this is a massive win for criminals.
EU to favour European satellite services to prevent Musk’s Starlink expansion
Unsurprising. It is exactly why Canada is likely to favour MDA Space and Telesat.
Lithuania investigates theft of 600,000 state registry records by foreign actor
Anyone Can Buy Data Tracking US Soldiers and Spies to Nuclear Vaults and Brothels in Germany
This is possible in many countries.
Netherlands takes down Botnet of more than 17 million devices dismantled
Reportedly tied to Russia.
[Google Translated] Sweden’s defense ministry rejects tech giants’ clouds for secret data
Internal reports call American assurances of cloud services a “false sense of security.” I find no faults with this statement.
Meet EuroOffice, Europe’s bold alternative to Microsoft 365 promising sovereignty and control
Word and Excel are so ubiquitous that they’re easy to imitate with minimal impact on the user.
Kremlin appoints cyber executive with alleged GRU ties to Security Council role
European Network of Security Operation Centers (ENSOC) Launches
Dutch government blocks sale of DigiD owner to US tech giant
Commission fines Temu €200 million for breaching the Digital Services Act
Other International News
MP, staffers hacked in WhatsApp attack by ‘foreign state actor’, inquiry told
China restricts overseas travel for top AI talent at Alibaba and DeepSeek, Bloomberg News reports
Not a surprise. They’ve previously done this with top cybersecurity talent.
Iran’s president orders reopening of international internet access, state media reports
A very gradual, small reopening from current data available, but we can expect this to shut down again if/once active hostilities resume.
Kate Conroy appointed inaugural general manager of Australian AI Safety Institute
This is a big win for Australia, Kate Conroy’s work is great.
Canada Buys Watch
I am still building out my monitoring, but I plan to post more Canadian cyber-related procurements here in the future. The focus will initially be DND/CAF, but will expand once I am happy my monitoring workflow is sufficient for DND/CAF.
Security Control Centre IT Modernization Project
Royal Military College is looking for a replacement OT software-as-a-service solution.
Closes June 19
1x Network Support Specialist Level 2 For Canadian joint Warfare Centre (CJWC) - JCIS CFXNET
Closes June 10
TBIPS - Business Systems Analyst (Level 3) and Business Transformation Architect (Level 3)
It looks like the Vice Chief of the Defence Staff appears to be preparing for a major IT modernization, citing PDC2 as an important basis for this.
Closes June 8
RFP - Repair and Overhaul for Strategic Deployable Terminals
Satellite Communications (SATCOM) SDT terminals
Closes June 30
RFI-WORLDWIDE SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS – PROTECTED MILSATCOM TACTICAL (WSC-PMT) PROJECT
Defence Investment Agency (DIA) is requesting Industry information and feedback regarding the Worldwide Satellite Communications Protected Military Satellite Communications (MILSATCOM) Tactical (WSC-PMT) Project.
Last updated May 19. Closes July 29
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Media of the Week
