Pierluigi Paganini June 18, 2015

Anonymous claimed responsibility for running DDoS attacks on Canadian government systems against the approval of anti-terror law C-51.

An ongoing cyber attack is targeting systems of the Canadian Government, including Government websites and email systems. The cyber attack started a few days after members of the Canadian parliament were warned of an impending attack.

The member of the parliament Tony Clement confirmed via Twitter that Government systems had been “cyberattacked.”

Confirmed today that Govt of Canada GC servers have been cyberattacked. Until full service is restored please use 1-800-OCanada.

— Tony Clement (@TonyclementCPC) 17 Giugno 2015

Clement confirmed that a denial-of-service attack hit the gc.ca domain server, which host many Canadian government websites, the attack also caused the paralysis of the e-mail accounts used by the government personnel.

“Industry, Employment, Natural Resources, Fisheries and Oceans, Justice, Labour, Foreign Affairs, Environment Canada and Transport Canada were inaccessible. “There’s only sporadic e-mails that are making their way through,” Mr. Clement said. However, within several hours, the attacks had subsided and government website and e-mails were functioning normally once again.” states The Globe and Mail. 

Canadian public safety minister Steven Blaney confirmed that no personal information was compromised by the cyber attack.

At the time I’m writing, members of the hacking collective Anonymous reportedly took credit for the cyberattack against the Canadian Government. The hacktivists published a video explaining that the attack is the response of the collective to the country’s recent passing of new anti-terror legislation (C51).

“The Anonymous online collective claimed responsibility for the attack — which shut down several federal sites and played havoc with email — as a protest against the recent passage of the federal anti-terrorism bill.” reported the website www.cp24.com.

It’s not the first time that government websites were targeted by hackers, last year a sophisticated APT group hackers into government networks and Chinese hackers were primary suspects.

An analogue situation occurred in 2010 when alleged Chinese hackers crippled computer systems at the Finance Department and Treasury Board to gather data on the potential takeover of a Canadian potash company.

Stay Tuned …