Canada faces cyberattacks on critical energy infrastructure

Russia-backed hackers are targeting Canada's energy sector and critical infrastructure to disrupt support for Ukraine, with broader threats from Chinese IP theft and trade coercion.

Canada's critical infrastructure, particularly its energy sector, has become a sustained target of state-sponsored cyberattacks. The Communications Security Establishment warned in 2023 that Russia-backed hackers are actively seeking to disrupt Canadian energy infrastructure, with the objective of weakening Canada's geopolitical support for Ukraine. The threat extends beyond energy to Canadian companies broadly, which suffered approximately $4.3 billion in ransomware losses in 2021. In February 2025, Russian hacking group Seashell Blizzard targeted energy and defense sectors across Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Beyond cyber threats, Canada faces intellectual property theft by Chinese state-sponsored actors—including a 2014 incident where over 40,000 files were stolen from the National Research Council's partners—and economic coercion through trade weaponization, particularly tariffs on agricultural exports like canola. The article frames these as components of a broader economic security challenge requiring Canadian policy responses but does not provide technical attack details, exploit information, or specific IOCs for defenders to operationalize.

Source reporting: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/issue-brief/canada-needs-an-economic-statecraft-strategy-to-address-its-vulnerabilities