Pierluigi Paganini
December 05, 2015
Canadian Authorities consider online crimes serious threats to the Homeland security. Several times law enforcement tried to identify members of hacking crews like Anonymous, but in many cases the investigations haven’t obtained satisfactory results.
The Canadian law enforcement agency, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police plans to set up a special cyber crime unit to tackle “online threats to Canada’s “political, economic, and social integrity.”
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police revealed its four-years Action Plan this week. The law enforcement plans to recruit cyber specialists, acquire new tools for data analysis and set up better relationships with other law enforcement agencies worldwide.
“the RCMP Cybercrime Strategy is based on extensive internal and external consultation and focuses on ways to improve Canada’s national police force in its fight against the rising and evolving threat of cybercrime. “
The new unit will be based in Ottawa and it will be tasked to “investigate the most significant threats to Canada’s political, economic, and social integrity that would negatively affect Canada’s reputation and economy.”
[The team ]”will have the capacity to target cyber-related criminal activity targeting the federal government, national critical infrastructure, and key business assets.”
The Canadian Government revealed that its systems are under unceasing attacks, earlier this year, hacktivists accessed documents pertaining to the technology infrastructure at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service’s foreign bureaus.
In many cases, hackers targeted Government websites with DDoS attack in retaliation for government legislation.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police consider the establishment of its cyber unit strategic.
“The team will enhance the RCMP’s ability to combat cybercrime-related offences where technology plays an integral role, such as investigating the unauthorized use of computers, mischief in relation to data, or the possession of a device to commit unauthorized computer use or data mischief,” the plan reads.
The ViceNews reported the statement of Jeff Adam, Chief Superintendent with Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which explained the difficulties law enforcement are facing when dealing online crime.
“Insofar as the apparent, as you say, lack of outcomes,” Adam said on a conference call presenting the action plan. “Cybercrime investigations, starting off, can involve encryption, the darknet, multinational jurisdictions — and, many times, many different national jurisdictions — and it is a complex and time-consuming task to both identify, gather the evidence on, and to bring those people into the realm of justice.
“And while there might not be, apparently, anything happening, this is not as simple as catching the car speeding down the street,””This is infinitely more complex and requires a whole new way of doing business.”
Darknet and encrypted communications complicate the investigation, the RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson expressed his frustration with encryption at a security conference in November.
“It’s a very difficult proposition to bring traditional criminal justice strategies to bear in a place where anonymity is protected,” “We’re chasing the wrong Holy Grail. I am all for new legislation, I am all for warrantless access to subscriber info,”
But privacy advocates and activists consider the cryptographic practice as a pillar of the freedom of expression on the Internet,
“The intelligence services of the world claim that encryption is a problem,” said Jacob Appelbaum at the recent World Forum for Democracy conference. “But the evidence has come out that, in fact, the attacks in Paris were perpetrated by people who used credit cards in their real name, who used unencrypted text messages to say things like ‘let’s go.'”
Unfortunately, someone is riding the recent dramatic events like the Paris attacks to argument online surveillance activities, but the Canadian Liberal government seems to have a different policy on the online monitoring activities.
(Security Affairs – RCMP, cybercrime)
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