Canada's foreign ministry suffers cyber attack amid tensions with Russia

There is no indication that any other government departments were impacted by the incident

Canada's foreign ministry was hit with a cyber attack last week affecting 'some access to internet and internet-based services,' officials said on Monday without disclosing who the government believed was behind the attack.

In a statement on Twitter, Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBS) said that the attack targeting Global Affairs Canada (GAC) was detected on 19th January, following which appropriate measures were taken to mitigate the risk.

GAC is the Canadian government department responsible for managing the country's diplomatic relations, promoting international trade and providing consular support.

According to TBS, critical services are currently available via Global Affairs Canada's (GAC) online systems, while some access to Internet and internet-based services is not available as computer systems continue to recover from the attack.

There is no evidence to suggest that any other government departments were impacted by the incident.

'There are systems and tools in place to monitor, detect, and investigate potential threats, and to take active measures to address and neutralize them when they occur,' TBS explained.

The cyber attack against GAC came a day before Canada's Cyber Centre advised Canadian organisations, especially network operators of critical infrastructure, to bolster their defences against Russian state-sponsored threats.

'(The CSE) is aware of foreign cyber threat activities, including by Russian-backed actors, to target Canadian critical infrastructure network operators, their operational and information technology,' the CSE said in its cyber threat bulletin.

The agency also urged network defenders to 'be prepared to isolate critical infrastructure components and services from the internet and corporate/internal networks if those components would be considered attractive to a hostile threat actor to disrupt'.

Network operators were advised to have a cyber incident response plan and a continuity of operations plan and be prepared to use those plans.

The GAC hack also comes at a time when Russia-Ukraine tensions continue to escalate, with Canada taking a strong line against Russia's troop build-up on the Ukrainian border.

Last week, Canada's government announced a $120 million loan to the Ukrainian government and re-committed Canadian soldiers to train Kiev's security forces.

"We're going to continue to be there to respond in ways that we can, to support Ukraine," Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Monday.

"This is something that matters deeply to us."

Earlier this month, multiple Ukrainian government websites came under a sustained hacking attack, with the attackers leaving menacing messages apparently aimed at intimidating aimed at Ukrainian citizens.

The attackers targeted websites belonging to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Cabinet of Ministers, the ministries of energy, education, and agricultural policy and the 'Diia' platform.

Microsoft later warned that it had discovered a highly destructive form of malware in dozens of government and private computer networks in Ukraine that appeared to be waiting to be triggered by an unknown threat actor.

Microsoft said that the malware was designed to look like ransomware, although its ultimate aim was likely to wipe out sensitive data at the hackers' direction.